Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various carnivorous mammals of the genus Mustela, having a long slender body, a long tail, short legs, and brownish fur that in many species turns white in winter.
  • noun A person regarded as sneaky or treacherous.
  • intransitive verb To be evasive; equivocate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small carnivorous digitigrade mammal of the restricted genus Putorius, of the family Mustelidæ, related to the stoat or ermine, ferret, and polecat of the same genus, and less intimately to the marten or sable of the genus Mustela of the same family.
  • noun The weasel-coot.
  • noun A lean, mean, sneaking, greedy fellow.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any one of various species of small carnivores belonging to the genus Putorius, as the ermine and ferret. They have a slender, elongated body, and are noted for the quickness of their movements and for their bloodthirsty habit in destroying poultry, rats, etc. The ermine and some other species are brown in summer, and turn white in winter; others are brown at all seasons.
  • noun the rasse.
  • noun a female or young male of the smew; -- so called from the resemblance of the head to that of a weasel. Called also weasel duck.
  • noun a short-tailed lemur (Lepilemur mustelinus). It is reddish brown above, grayish brown below, with the throat white.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The least weasel, Mustela nivalis.
  • noun Any of the carnivorous mammals of the genus Mustela, having a slender body, a long tail and usually a light brown upper coat and light-coloured belly.
  • noun The taxonomic family Mustelidae is also called the weasel family.
  • noun A devious or sneaky person or animal.
  • noun A type of yarn winder used for counting the yardage of handspun yarn. It most commonly has a wooden peg or dowel that pops up from the gearing mechanism after a certain number of yards have been wound onto the winder.
  • verb transitive To achieve by clever or devious means.
  • verb To gain something for oneself by clever or devious means.
  • verb intransitive To engage in clever or devious behavior.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who is regarded as treacherous or sneaky
  • noun small carnivorous mammal with short legs and elongated body and neck

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English wesele, from Old English wesle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English wesele, from Old English weosule, from Proto-Germanic *wisulōn (compare West Frisian wezeling, Dutch wezel, German Wiesel), from Proto-Indo-European *wiselos (compare Irish fíal 'ferret'), from *wis- 'musk, stink' (compare Latin virus 'slimy liquid, mud; stench', Sanskrit विस्र (visra) 'musty, smelling of raw meat)'.

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Examples

  • The use of a target in weasel is irrelevant; it is required only because the analogy weasel uses is string "fitness" (correspondence to a known Englidh phrase) and string fitness is defined by human convention.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • March 19th, 2010 at 1: 36 pm tombaker says: the weasel is the only mammal capable of rotating its spine past 180 degrees, as aptly demonstrated in post 43.

    Think Progress » GOP Congressmen Say That ‘Everyone’ In Congress ‘Would Agree That Iraq Was A Mistake’ 2010

  • Perhaps, being from the "other side," "far side," or "dark side," you could concisely explain to me what message "weasel" is supposed to convey.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Wow, the poor weasel is still being kicked around this blog?

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Wow, the poor weasel is still being kicked around this blog?

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Perhaps, being from the "other side," "far side," or "dark side," you could concisely explain to me what message "weasel" is supposed to convey.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Wow, the poor weasel is still being kicked around this blog?

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Perhaps, being from the "other side," "far side," or "dark side," you could concisely explain to me what message "weasel" is supposed to convey.

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Wow, the poor weasel is still being kicked around this blog?

    The Weasel Thread 2009

  • Wow, the poor weasel is still being kicked around this blog?

    The Weasel Thread 2009

Comments

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  • The weasel is a dirty animal that must not be eaten. It conceives at the mouth and gives birth through the ear (though some say it is the other way around). If the birth takes place through the right ear, the offspring will be male; if it is through the left ear, a female will be born…

    The weasel is the enemy of the basilisk and is the only animal that can kill one.

    October 12, 2008

  • Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. - Homer Simpson

    March 8, 2009

  • Pop! goes the weasel.

    November 26, 2009

  • So, if frindley is to be believed, Harry Potter is a weasel. I always thought he had a shifty look about him.

    November 26, 2009

  • In my experience, frindley is always to be believed. :-)

    December 1, 2009

  • That is disgusting.

    Now I have more reason to dislike Harry Potter... and Ginny Weasley

    December 1, 2009