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Muskrat   Listen
noun
Muskrat  n.  
1.
(Zool.) A North American aquatic fur-bearing rodent (Ondatra zibethica formerly Fiber zibethicus). It resembles a rat in color and having a long scaly tail, but the tail is compressed, the hind feet are webbed, and the ears are concealed in the fur. It has scent glands which secrete a substance having a strong odor of musk. Called also musquash, musk beaver, ondatra, and sometimes water rat.
2.
(Zool.) The musk shrew.
3.
(Zool.) The desman.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Muskrat" Quotes from Famous Books



... asked what the matter was. Little Joe wouldn't tell, but Billy Mink told the whole story. When he told how Buster had been too smart for Little Joe, it tickled him so that Billy had to laugh in spite of himself. So did Grandfather Frog. So did Jerry Muskrat, who had been listening. Of course this made Little Joe angrier than ever. He said a lot of unkind things about Buster Bear and about Billy Mink and Grandfather Frog and Jerry Muskrat, because they had laughed ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... against the other shore, the scurrying shoals of pin-fish played safely in the sun. Once in a long while a fish would pass, up or down, so big that the master of the pool was willing to let him go unchallenged. And sometimes a muskrat, swimming with powerful strokes of his hind legs, his tiny forepaws gathered childishly under his chin, would take his way over the pool to the meadow of the blue flag-flowers. The master of the pool would turn up a fierce eye, and watch the swimmer's progress breaking the golden surface ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... The muskrat is about the size of a cat; that is, it is twenty-one inches long, of which the tail is ten inches. In color it somewhat resembles the beaver, but its feet are not conspicuously webbed, its tail is long and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... sometimes; so we went to another place I knew where there was a tiger's den, and I loaded with tiger lily bullets, gave him the gun and showed him where to aim. After we had waited a long time out came a muskrat, and started for the river. I looked to see why Mr. Pryor didn't shoot, and there he was gazing at it as if a snake had charmed him; his hands shaking a little, his cheeks almost ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... the beaver to dive down to the bottom of the water and to try to bring up a little mud. The beaver dived and was under water for a long time, but he could not reach the bottom. Then the loon tried, and after him the otter, but the water was too deep for them. At last the muskrat was sent down, and he was gone for a long time; so long that they thought he must be drowned, but at last he came up and floated almost dead on the water, and when they pulled him up on the raft and looked at ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... unheralded entries into our house, and their ready assumption of its privileges. I can see them yet—yes, and smell them, too. In some unventilated chamber of my rather capacious nostrils an abiding breath of that intense, all-conquering odor of fish, smoke and muskrat, which they brought with them, still survives. I well remember their impudent and sometimes bullying demeanor; and the horror of one occasion I shall never forget, when a stalwart Winnebago, armed with a knife, tomahawk and gun, seized my mother by the shoulder as she stood by her ironing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... wasn't of much account. I was neither dangerous, like Jim Cringle, nor good to eat, like a muskrat or a pickerel. So I don't appear any more in this yarn. If you find yourself wondering how I came to know about some of the things I'm going to tell you, just make believe I got it from the chickadee, who is the most confidential little chap in ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Eskimo adikey, made of white moleskin cloth, with the hood thrown back, served as a coat. His trousers were also of white moleskin, and were tucked into knee-high sealskin boots with moccasined feet. From under a muskrat fur cap appeared a round, smiling face, tanned a dark brown, and a pair of bright, ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace

... medicine over this Santa Claus round-up. Slim, she says you've got to be Santy and come down the stovepipe and give the kids fits and popcorn strung on a string. She says you've got the figure." Weary splashed into the wash basin like a startled muskrat. ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... reached Three Rivers, in Quebec. Here the Major was handed over to the French officer in charge at that place, and was put under guard, but treated well, as had been the case on the journey from Nova Scotia. Possibly roasted muskrat would not be considered an appetizing diet, but the major found it kept away hunger, and that was no small consideration in a journey of five hundred miles ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... make, dated 1603; the instrument used in those distant days for taking astronomical observations and ascertaining the latitude. No doubt it had belonged to Champlain, who lost it on this very portage by way of Muskrat and Mud lakes, as from this place he ceases to give us the correct latitudes which he had previously been ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... looking all around, Billy Bunny knocked on the door of the little stone house and in a few minutes it was opened by a nice lady muskrat, whose name ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory

... a trapper would not get enough mink, otter, fox, or even muskrat skins to buy his tobacco in a season. Why, these little varmints are just chain lightning when it comes to cleverness, and they can sometimes outwit the smartest old trapper who ever drew breath. There are a thousand secrets connected with the business, and no one man carries ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... to secure at least a single victim. There were muskrats along the banks and there was a great beaver, which was not abundant, and which was a mighty creature of his kind. Of muskrats the boys speared many—and roasted muskrat is so good that it is eaten by the Indians and some of the white hunters in Canada to-day—but the big beaver they did not succeed in capturing at this stage of their career. Once they saw a seal, which had come up the river from the sea, and pursued ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... whom the sleeper had designated "Redmond," proceeded to divest himself of his short fur coat and, after dashing the snow from it and his muskrat-faced cap, unbuckled his side-arms, and hung all up at the head of his own ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... mortigo. Murderer mortiganto. Murky malhela, malluma. Murmur murmuri. Muscat wine muskatvino. Muscle muskolo. Muscular muskola. Muse muzo. Muse revi. Museum muzeo. Mushroom fungo. Music muziko. Musical muzika. Musician muzikisto. Music (to play) muziki. Muskrat miogalo. Musket pafilo. Muslin muslino. Mussel mitulo. Must (verb) devas. Must mosto. Mustard mustardo. Mustard plant sinapo. Mustard-plaster sinapa kataplasmo. Muster kunvenigi. Musty malfresxa. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... the trapper to-day for such common skins as red-fox and skunk and muskrat than was ever paid to the fur-hunter for beaver, seal, and sea-otter in the old days. Six million dollars worth of raw furs are sold annually by auction in London, and Canada is the Mother Country's chief feeder. Included in ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... served for a bed. It is thus that a couple of men, in a few hours will construct for themselves a temporary, but tolerably comfortable defense, from the inclemencies of the weather. The beaver, otter, muskrat and squirrel are scarcely their equals in dispatch in fabricating for themselves ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... fox his hillside cell forsakes, The muskrat leaves his nook, The bluebird in the meadow brakes Is singing with the brook. "Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry Bird, breeze, and streamlet free; "Our winter voices prophesy Of summer ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... fragrance, aroma, redolence, perfume, bouquet, essence, scent; sweet smell, aromatic perfume. agalloch^, agallochium^; aloes wood; bay rum; calambac^, calambour^; champak^, horehound, lign-aloes^, marrubium^, mint, muskrat, napha water^, olibanum^, spirit of myrcia^. essential oil. incense; musk, frankincense; pastil^, pastille; myrrh, perfumes of Arabia^; otto^, ottar^, attar; bergamot, balm, civet, potpourri, pulvil^; nosegay; scentbag^; sachet, smelling bottle, vinaigrette; eau de Cologne [Fr.], toilet water, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... "Animal homes" which appeal especially to the child's mind are the hen and chickens, the downy eider ducks, the family of red foxes, and the home of the muskrat. "Color in nature" is effectively illustrated by grouping together certain tropical fishes, minerals, shells, insects, and birds in such a manner as to bring out vivid red, yellow, blue, and green colors. Here and elsewhere in the museum are placed appropriate ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine



Words linked to "Muskrat" :   genus Ondatra, musquash, muskrat fur, pelt, Ondatra, fur



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