weasel
pronunciation
How to pronounce weasel in British English:
UK [ˈwi:zl]
How to pronounce weasel in American English:
US [ˈwizəl]
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- Noun:
- small carnivorous mammal with short legs and elongated body and neck
Word Origin
- weasel (n.)
- Old English weosule, wesle "weasel," from Proto-Germanic *wisulon (cognates: Old Norse visla, Middle Dutch wesel, Dutch wezel, Old High German wisula, German Wiesel), probably related to Proto-Germanic *wisand- "bison" (see bison), with a base sense of "stinking animal," because both animals have a foul, musky smell (compare Latin vissio "stench"). A John Wesilheued ("John Weaselhead") turns up on the Lincolnshire Assize Rolls for 1384, but the name seems not to have endured, for some reason. Related: Weaselly.
- weasel (v.)
- "to deprive (a word or phrase) of its meaning," 1900, from weasel (n.); so used because the weasel sucks out the contents of eggs, leaving the shell intact. Both this and weasel-word are first attested in "The Stained-Glass Political Platform," a short story by Stewart Chaplin, first printed in "Century Magazine," June 1900: "Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell. If you heft the egg afterward it's as light as a feather, and not very filling when you're hungry; but a basketful of them would make quite a show, and would bamboozle the unwary." They were picked up at once in American political slang. The sense of "extricate oneself (from a difficult place) like a weasel" is first recorded 1925; that of "to evade and equivocate" is from 1956. Related: Weasled; weasling.
Example
- 1. As every slimy weasel will tell you , there is an art to being a good gossip .
- 2. In buon me thuot , the province 's capital and the coffee capital of vietnam , nearly every market-stall vendor claims to sell the weasel beans , often asking for at least $ 100 per kilogram .
- 3. Their boss escaped to weasel out of his .
- 4. They set a trap for the weasel .
- 5. The newspaper cartoon depicted the president as a weasel .