Crossword clues for muskrat
muskrat
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Desman \Des"man\ (d[e^]s"man), n. [Cf. Sw. desman musk.] (Zo["o]l.) An amphibious, insectivorous mammal found in Russia ( Myogale moschata). It is allied to the moles, but is called muskrat by some English writers. [Written also d[ae]sman.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also musk-rat, 1610s, alteration (by association with musk and rat) of musquash, from Algonquian (probably Powhatan) muscascus, literally "it is red," so called for its colorings. From cognate Abenaki muskwessu comes variant form musquash (1620s).
Wiktionary
n. 1 A large aquatic rodent (''Ondatra zibethicus''). 2 Any of several species of shrews in the family Soricidae, especially the Asian house shrew, (taxlink Suncus murinus species noshow=1)
WordNet
n. the brown fur of a muskrat
beaver-like aquatic rodent of North America with dark glossy brown fur [syn: musquash, Ondatra zibethica]
Wikipedia
The muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), the only species in genus Ondatra and tribe Ondatrini, is a medium-sized semiaquatic rodent native to North America, and is an introduced species in parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. The muskrat is found in wetlands over a wide range of climates and habitats. It has important effects on the ecology of wetlands, and is a resource of food and fur for humans.
The muskrat is the largest species in the subfamily Arvicolinae, which includes 142 other species of rodents, mostly voles and lemmings. Muskrats are referred to as " rats" in a general sense because they are medium-sized rodents with an adaptable lifestyle and an omnivorous diet. They are not, however, members of the genus Rattus.
The muskrat is a type of rodent, including:
- Barbudan Muskrat, and extinct mammal formerly endemic to the island of Barbuda
- Martinique muskrat, and extinct mammal formerly endemic to the island of Martinique
- Round-tailed muskrat, a mammal native to Florida, the United States
- Siberian muskrat, a mammal found across Northern Asia
Muskrat may also refer to:
Usage examples of "muskrat".
The muskrat is also the simple machinery in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest coast, the Osages and some Algonkin tribes.
The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of the Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out to search for land before the muskrat brought it to him from the bottom.
I wanted to drive deep into the Atchafalaya Swamp, past the confines of reason, into the past, into a world of lost dialects, gator hunters, busthead whiskey, moss harvesters, Jax beer, trotline runners, moonshiners, muskrat trappers, cockfights, bloodred boudin, a jigger of Jim Beam lowered into a frosted schooner of draft, outlaw shrimpers, dirty rice black from the pot, hogmeat cooked in rum, Pearl and Regal and Grand Prize and Lone Star iced down in washtubs, crawfish boiled with cob corn and artichokes, all of it on the tree-flooded, alluvial rim of the world, where the tides and the course of the sun were the only measures of time.
He knew the river, embraced it like a lover, pointing at a turtle sunning on a log, a muskrat diving from the bank, swimming into its lodge, the swirl of a smallmouth bass rising for a cricket caught in a ripple behind a sunken stone.
Five decades of running traplines for nutria and muskrat had left him rangy and quick, impervious to injury.
No herons waded in the shallows, no beavers or muskrats were busy building nests.
As she had been in the spring, Hannah became her teacher once again, pointing out the flocks of robins and chickadees gorging in preparation for their flight south, half-built muskrat shelters woven with cattails and bulrushes, a red-bellied snake working its way into an abandoned anthill where it would sleep through the cold.
Falling-Day was predicting a hard winter from the way the corn husks had grown in a tight swirl, and the thickness of the muskrat shelters.
Milagro metamorphosed into one great gloppy bog, overrun with muskrats and water snakes.
He had always something interesting afoot,--minks, or muskrats, or a skunk, or a big owl,--so I hailed him with joy.
Let me only remark that with the beavers, the muskrats, and some other rodents, we already find the feature which will also be distinctive of human communities--that is, work in common.
He elaborated also the technique of the spearing of muskrats, and he was copious on the intricate subject of fox.
Like sea things retreating with the ocean's tide, water snakes and muskrats went back to the green areas along ditches and in the dampest vegas.
Muskrat wasn't always easy to locate within the jumbles of heater cores, batteries, oil pans, grease guns, chains, tow ropes, bungee straps, gas lines, vacuum hoses, homemade jumper cables, stands made of old Ford wheels, clutches.
As his dad's Labrador retriever went foraging among the cattails for muskrat or jackrabbit, they pushed this boat into the muddy water and jumped aboard.