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musteline

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling the mustelids.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or belonging to the subfamily Mustelinae, which includes the weasels and martens.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Dogfish-like; of or pertaining to the Mustelinæ.
  • noun A musteline fish.
  • Resembling a marten or weasel; of or pertaining to the Mustelinæ, or, in a broader sense, to the Mustelidæ or weasel family.
  • Specifically, tawny, like a weasel in summer; fawn-colored.
  • noun A musteline mammal; a member of the Mustelinæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Zoöl.) Like or pertaining to the family Mustelidæ, or the weasels and martens.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective zoology Like or relating to the family Mustelidae, or the weasels and martens.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fissiped fur-bearing carnivorous mammals

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin mūstēlīnus, of a weasel, from mūstēla, weasel, probably from mūs, mouse; see mūs- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin mūstēlīnus, from mūstēla ("weasel"), from mūs ("mouse”, “rat").

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Examples

  • The direction of Ms. Clinton's musteline personality is determined by the direction of the current political breeze.

    Happy Hour Roundup 2009

  • We now come to the third group of the musteline animals, the most aquatic of all the Fissipedia -- the _Lutridae_ or Otters -- of which there are two great divisions, the common Otters (_Lutra_) and the

    Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Robert Armitage Sterndale 1870

  • He went so far as to deploy the legally fraught term defamatory, which is the musteline way of subtly raising the specter of a legal threat.

    Media Blog 2008

  • American sloth W 1883 OW mephitine skunk W soricine shrew 1781 - moschine musk deer c1878 OW OW talpine mole 1860 OW musteline weasel, mink tapirine tapir

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol IV No 1 1977

Comments

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  • emily_morine commented on the word musteline

    Weasel-like.

    December 8, 2006

  • hernesheir commented on the word musteline

    (adj): of or pertaining to the weasel or marten family; having the brown coloration of the weasel.

    (n): a marten or weasel.

    January 11, 2009