Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various small omnivorous rodents of the family Gliridae of Eurasia and Africa, having long furred tails and known for their long hibernation periods.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A rodent of the family Myoxidæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A small European rodent of the genus Myoxus, of several species. They live in trees and feed on nuts, acorns, etc.; -- so called because they are usually torpid in winter.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several species of small, mostly
European rodents of the familyGliridae ; also calledMyoxidae or Muscardinidae by some taxonomists. - noun UK Muscardinus avellanarius, the hazel dormouse.
- noun figuratively A person who sleeps a great deal, or who falls asleep readily (by analogy with the sound hibernation of the dormouse).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun small furry-tailed squirrel-like Old World rodent that becomes torpid in cold weather
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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At that time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world; when it stood up it looked like a mountain.
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But by this time the dormouse was a very small animal, and has remained so ever since.
Thirty Indian Legends Margaret Bemister
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At last, however, the animal now called a dormouse, which was then the largest gnawing animal existing, was persuaded to go.
Aboriginal America 1860
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At this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world.
The Indian Fairy Book From the Original Legends Cornelius Mathews 1853
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At last the dormouse undertook it -- for at this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world.
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians Henry Rowe Schoolcraft 1828
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The edible dormouse is a relative of the endangered hazel dormouse, which is a native species in the UK.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010
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The edible dormouse is a relative of the endangered hazel dormouse, which is a native species in the UK
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010
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The "dormouse," however, used to come up and say her parts for my benefit, and that of occasional friends, and was so modest and winsome, and her earnings so invaluable to the family, that I entirely altered my opinion.
A Labrador Doctor The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Wilfred Thomason Grenfell 1902
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There she remained, and in the morning one of the labourers found her, and, thinking she was some kind of dormouse, he carried her home to his little girl; and if you call on Mary Ann Smith you will see Fairy Fluffikins there still in a little cage.
The Gray Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse Michael Fairless 1885
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And that's good news for the rare hazel dormouse which is believed to live in neighbouring woodland.
HX News and Sport 2010
sionnach commented on the word dormouse
Dormice -- a tasty Calabrian treat!
January 15, 2009