Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The ermine, Putorius erminea, and other members of that genus when not specified by distinctive names. See
ermine , weasel, mink, fitchew, polecat, ferrer.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) The ermine in its summer pelage, when it is reddish brown, but with a black tip to the tail. The name is sometimes applied also to other brown weasels.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Mustela erminea, the
ermine or short-tailedweasel , amustelid native toEurasia andNorth America , distinguished from the least weasel by its larger size and longer tail with a prominent black tip.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the ermine in its brown summer coat with black-tipped tail
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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She was brought up in the country, rides well (side-saddle), plays a goodish game of tennis, but does not know a stoat from a weasel or notice the direction of the wind.
Try Anything Twice 1938
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The ermine, or stoat, is a bloodthirsty little villain.
Janey Canuck in the West Emily Ferguson 1910
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* An animal called the stoat, a kind of ermine, is said to be found in North America, but very inferior to the European and Asiatic.
Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains 1836
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* An animal called the stoat, a kind of ermine, is said to be found in North America, but very inferior to the European and Asiatic.
Astoria, or, anecdotes of an enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains Washington Irving 1821
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The little English stoat, which is destroyed by the gamekeepers, becomes the beautiful snow-white ermine in Russia and other cold countries. "
Masterman Ready The Wreck of the "Pacific" Frederick Marryat 1820
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The clatter of a pheasant call from the field beyond sends the stoat into hiding.
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A couple of weeks ago I watched an adult stoat carry a vole in its jaws back to the gap in the wall beneath the sycamore tree where I reckon its nest to be.
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The stoat scampers along the dry-stone wall, lightly cresting the lichen-covered coping stones.
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Both she and the stoat, with its white winter coat, are looking in the same direction, at something to the viewer's right.
An Exhibition of a Lifetime Paul Levy 2011
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The stacked wood, being undisturbed for the summer months, is a haunt of mice, and the stoat undulates over it, coming down headfirst like a nuthatch.
chained_bear commented on the word stoat
The European ermine, Putorius ermineus or Mustela erminea, esp. when in its brown summer coat.
Also, figurative, esp. a treacherous fellow; a sexually aggressive man, a lecher.
February 5, 2007
ofravens commented on the word stoat
Plath citations: see note at lapwing.
April 14, 2008