Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various rodents of the genus Microtus and related genera, found throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere and having a short muzzle and tail and small ears.
- noun The winning of all the tricks during the play of one hand, as of bridge; a grand slam.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In card-playing, a winning of all the tricks played in one deal.
- noun A shorttailed field-mouse or meadow-mouse; a campagnol or arvicoline; any member of the genus Arvicola in a broad sense.
- In card-playing, to win all the tricks played in one deal.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of micelike rodents belonging to Arvicola and allied genera of the subfamily
Arvicolinæ . They have a thick head, short ears, and a short hairy tail. - noun A deal at cards that draws all the tricks.
- intransitive verb (Card Playing) To win all the tricks by a vole.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the family
Cricetidae .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various small mouselike rodents of the family Cricetidae (especially of genus Microtus) having a stout short-tailed body and inconspicuous ears and inhabiting fields or meadows
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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We'd have been to him what a very slow and stupid meadow vole is to a hawk.
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We'd have been to him what a very slow and stupid meadow vole is to a hawk.
Lance Mannion: 2008
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Another ‘100 years’ vole is the highly distinctive Balkan snow vole or Martino’s snow vole Dinaromys bogdanovi (Martino, 1922), originally named as a species of Microtus but awarded its own genus in 1955.
Archive 2006-10-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Another ‘100 years’ vole is the highly distinctive Balkan snow vole or Martino’s snow vole Dinaromys bogdanovi (Martino, 1922), originally named as a species of Microtus but awarded its own genus in 1955.
The first new European mammal in 100 years? You must be joking Darren Naish 2006
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Seven-year-olds Gracie Stahura and Sophia Husack lean over their prize - the tiny skeletal remains of a tiny rodent called a vole.
Volunteers Keep Hands-On Science Alive in US Classrooms 2011
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If your mum thought it a rat, I think the vole is the smaller of the two.
Mystery Mammal 2006
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This vole, which is described and figured by Milne-Edwards, is supposed to have been found in Afghanistan from a specimen in
Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Robert Armitage Sterndale 1870
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The vole, which is not a rat, is a goodly sight, and the smooth round dormouse (or sleep-mouse, as the children call it) is a favourite gift imprisoned in an old tea-pot.
John Keble's Parishes Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862
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A vole is a single-bite snack to a coyote, he had the opportunity to eat him several times during this encounter but didn't.
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A vole is a single-bite snack to a coyote, he had the opportunity to eat him several times during this encounter but didn't.
rolig commented on the word vole
Not (necessarily) to be confused with love. Unless, of course, you happen to be a vole.
April 16, 2009
Prolagus commented on the word vole
On the internet, nobody knows...
April 16, 2009