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rodent
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
rodent
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
small
▪ Notice the narrow snout extending beyond the mouth which helps it to seek out small rodents, reptiles and invertebrates.
▪ I told Thompson to alert all the guards on duty to be on the lookout for a small brown rodent.
▪ She worried away at her husband like a small and angry rat tackling an even smaller rodent.
▪ Deer mandible chewed by small rodents showing the elongated and parallel sided double grooves characteristic of rodent gnawing.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Birds and rodents live in the cavities.
▪ In the last few years remote places have revealed new deer, new primates and a whole host of rodents.
▪ Not all cultures have banished commensal rodents to the moral darkness.
▪ Notice the narrow snout extending beyond the mouth which helps it to seek out small rodents, reptiles and invertebrates.
▪ Small desert rodents and the Bedouin goat can survive short periods of dehydration which result in a 20-30 percent weight loss.
▪ The latter is a large rodent that has the run of the island.
▪ The well at her monastery was said to have repellent properties against rodents.
▪ This conjecture holds up across all the monkeys and across all rodents.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rodent

Rodent \Ro"dent\, n. (Zo["o]l.) One of the Rodentia.

Rodent

Rodent \Ro"dent\, a. [L. rodens, -entis, p. pr. of rodere to gnaw. See Rase, v. t., and cf. Rostrum.]

  1. Gnawing; biting; corroding; (Med.) applied to a destructive variety of cancer or ulcer.

  2. (Zo["o]l.)

    1. Gnawing.

    2. Of or pertaining to the Rodentia.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
rodent

1835 (as an adjective 1833), from Modern Latin Rodentia, the order name, from Latin rodentem (nominative rodens), present participle of rodere "to gnaw, eat away," from PIE root *red- "to scrape, scratch, gnaw" (cognates: Sanskrit radati "scrapes, gnaws," radanah "tooth;" Latin radere "to scrape;" Welsh rhathu "scrape, polish"). Uncertain connection to Old English rætt (see rat (n.)).

Wiktionary
rodent

a. Gnawing; biting; corroding; applied to a destructive variety of cancer or ulcer. n. (senseid en mammal of the order Rodentia)A mammal of the order Rodentia, characterized by long incisors that grow continuously and are worn down by gnawing.

WordNet
rodent

n. relatively small gnawing animals having a single pair of constantly growing incisor teeth specialized for gnawing [syn: gnawer, gnawing animal]

Wikipedia
Rodent

Rodents (from Latin rodere, "to gnaw") are mammals of the order Rodentia, which are characterized by a single pair of unremittingly growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About forty percent of all mammal species are rodents; they are found in vast numbers on all continents except Antarctica. They are the most diversified mammalian order and live in a variety of terrestrial habitats, including human-made environments.

There are species that are arboreal, fossorial (burrowing), and semiaquatic. Well-known rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, hamsters, and capybaras. Other animals such as rabbits, hares and pikas were once included with them, but are now considered to be in a separate order, Lagomorpha.

Most rodents are small animals with robust bodies, short limbs and long tails. They use their sharp incisors to gnaw food, excavate burrows and defend themselves. Most eat seeds or other plant material, but some have more varied diets. They tend to be social animals and many species live in societies with complex ways of communicating with each other. Mating among rodents can vary from monogamy, to polygyny, to promiscuity. Many have litters of underdeveloped, altricial young, while others have precocial young that are relatively well developed at birth.

The rodent fossil record dates back to the Paleocene on the supercontinent of Laurasia. They greatly diversified in the Eocene, as they spread across continents, sometimes even finding means to cross oceans. Rodents reached both South America and Madagascar from Africa, and were the only terrestrial placental mammals to reach and colonize Australia.

Rodents have been used as food, for clothing, as pets and as laboratory animals in research. Some species, in particular the brown rat, the black rat, and the house mouse are serious pests, eating and spoiling food stored by humans, and spreading diseases. Accidentally introduced species of rodents are often considered to be invasive, and have caused the extinction of numerous species, such as island birds, previously isolated from land-based predators.

Usage examples of "rodent".

On these same plains of La Plata, we see the agouti and bizcacha, animals having nearly the same habits as our hares and rabbits and belonging to the same order of Rodents, but they plainly display an American type of structure.

Several pigs, agoutis, kangaroos, and other rodents were seen, also two or three koalas, at which Pencroft longed to have a shot.

Alarm changed to resignation, and more and more Doc Daneeka acquired the look of an ailing rodent.

It would be very difficult to obtain a strain of Ebola, but it would be easier to obtain strains of arenaviruses from rodents in their natural habitat.

The arenaviruses are a much larger family than the filoviruses, and their natural hosts are known: rodents.

The arenaviruses are passed from generation to generation through the rodents that carry them.

Indian riverbedfor example, the bobac, or Asian marmot, a rodent related to our woodchucks.

In the latter also the fibula, which is anchylosed to the end of the tibia, articulates with the calcaneum or heel-bone, which is not the case with the simple-toothed rodents.

The dark hall, the odor of dead rodents, peculiarly the smell of cosmoline, wetted burned paper.

I pass in silence the two large families which include the jerboa, the chinchilla, the biscacha, and the tushkan, or underground hare of South Russia, though all these small rodents might be taken as excellent illustrations of the pleasures derived by animals from social life.

Gil and Rudy moved cautiously through the broken, silent Palace, past empty chambers teeming with eruptions of mosses or slithering with vines, and over crazy, tilting pavements where the rotting tapestries whispered with a horrible suggestion of rodent life.

Battle for Christmas, judging our rodent brothers effete city folk, delicate nibblers and noshers who scorned our lumberjack appetites.

Here in this room an old man had killed and boiled a catechumen, had committed sodomy with a rat, had discussed a rodent nunhood with V.

When a paca, a spotted rodent, trotted out of the deepening shadows of the trees and made a beeline for the overgrown gardens, Will looked back to the fire ring.

The movement came again, and he relaxed as he made out the spots and stripes of a paca, a rodent somewhat bigger than a rabbit.