Log in or Sign up
  1. chipmunk love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of several small striped terrestrial squirrels of the genera Tamias and Eutamias, especially T. striatus of eastern North America.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A name of the hackee or chipping-squirrel of the United States, Tamias striatus, and of other species of the genus Tamias (which see). The common chipmunk is a small striped species, about 6 inches long, with the tail 4 inches; it is reddish-brown in the upper parts, and has two white stripes and four black ones on the sides. It is abundant in eastern North America, and furnishes a connecting link between the arboreal squirrels proper and the ground-squirrels or spermophiles.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A squirrel-like rodent of the genus Tamias, native mainly to North America.
  2. v. To speed up an audio recording, especially a song, to make the voices high-pitched.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) A squirrel-like animal of the genus Tamias, sometimes called the striped squirrel, chipping squirrel, ground squirrel, hackee. The common species of the United States is the Tamias striatus.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a burrowing ground squirrel of western America and Asia; has cheek pouches and a light and dark stripe running down the body

Etymologies

  1. 1832; alteration (influenced by chipping squirrel) of earlier chitmunk, from older Ojibwe ačitamo˙nˀ ‘squirrels’ (modern ajidamóóg), literally ‘those who descend headlong’, from ačit- ‘headfirst, face-down’ (compare modern ajijibizo ‘he falls headfirst’, ajidagoojin ‘he hangs upside down’). The verb developed due to the high-pitched voices of the chipmunks in the film Alvin and the Chipmunks. (Wiktionary)
  2. Alteration of obsolete chitmunk, perhaps from Ojibwa ajidamoonʔ, red squirrel. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘chipmunk’.

Comments

No comments yet...

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

Tweets

Looking for tweets for chipmunk.

‘chipmunk’ has been looked up 1461 times, added to 20 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 21.