SQUIRREL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does squirrel mean? 

• SQUIRREL (noun)
  The noun SQUIRREL has 2 senses:

1. a kind of arboreal rodent having a long bushy tail

2. the fur of a squirrel

  Familiarity information: SQUIRREL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SQUIRREL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A kind of arboreal rodent having a long bushy tail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("squirrel" is a kind of...):

gnawer; rodent (relatively small placental mammals having a single pair of constantly growing incisor teeth specialized for gnawing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "squirrel"):

tree squirrel (any typical arboreal squirrel)

gopher; ground squirrel; spermophile (any of various terrestrial burrowing rodents of Old and New Worlds; often destroy crops)

eastern chipmunk; ground squirrel; hackee; striped squirrel; Tamias striatus (small striped semiterrestrial eastern American squirrel with cheek pouches)

chipmunk (a burrowing ground squirrel of western America and Asia; has cheek pouches and a light and dark stripe running down the body)

baranduki; baronduki; barunduki; burunduki; Eutamius asiaticus; Eutamius sibiricus (terrestrial Siberian squirrel)

American flying squirrel (New World flying squirrels)

Asiatic flying squirrel (nocturnal rodent of Asia having furry folds of skin between forelegs and hind legs enabling it to move by gliding leaps)

Holonyms ("squirrel" is a member of...):

family Sciuridae; Sciuridae (a mammal family of true squirrels including: ground squirrels; marmots; chipmunks; flying squirrels; spermophiles)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The fur of a squirrel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("squirrel" is a kind of...):

fur; pelt (the dressed hairy coat of a mammal)

 Context examples 

But as birds flew in the air, squirrels could climb trees, and the cub could only try to crawl unobserved upon the squirrel when it was on the ground.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The birds talked of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Wild rodents and squirrels carry it, but it is called monkeypox because scientists saw it first in lab monkeys.

(Monkeypox Virus Infections, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

When Dorothy awoke the sun was shining through the trees and Toto had long been out chasing birds around him and squirrels.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Next, they compared gene expression of stem cell-derived neurons from ground squirrels and humans.

(Researchers develop “hibernation in a dish” to study how animals adapt to the cold, National Institutes of Health)

"I've made such quantities it would be hard to choose which I'd have," said Laurie, lying flat and throwing cones at the squirrel who had betrayed him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

When they can bend my war-bow, and bring down a squirrel at a hundred paces, I send them to take service under Johnny Copeland, the Lord of the Marches and Governor of Carlisle.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

While the animals’ brains experience dramatically reduced blood flow during hibernation, just like human patients after a certain type of stroke, the squirrels emerge from their extended naps suffering no ill effects.

(Hibernating ground squirrels provide clues to new stroke treatments, National Institutes of Health)

The nuts are quite ripe now, said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet, suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can, before the squirrel takes them all away.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Six foot three in height, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers, finally, remarkably quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his concoction.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)