meerkat
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of meerkat
Dutch: literally, monkey, apparently equivalent to meer ( see mere 2) + kat cat
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Artificial intelligence lets these glasses identify objects in our field of view, like a ficus tree or a Southern African meerkat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
One of the most familiar cooperative breeders to a human audience might be the meerkat, thanks to the documentary series Meerkat Manor.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
Bob, a one-eyed African black-footed penguin, and Grub, a meerkat, were also scanned, along with a sloth named Arlo.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
"When one meerkat calls, a neighbour is likely to reply," he adds.
From Science Daily ● May 20, 2024
“Not at all. It was horrific and it stank. By the way, how do you explain the meerkat bones in the lifeboat?”
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
Off to the right is a mob of meerkats and on the other side, some black and white goats that are rarer than giant pandas.
From BBC ● May 29, 2026
In the more than three decades that Clutton-Brock has been watching the Kalahari meerkats, he’s seen their habitat get hotter.
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
Humans appear to be much closer to animals like meerkats and beavers than to most other primates when it comes to exclusive mating, according to new research from the University of Cambridge.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 22, 2026
Are the meerkats that appear near the end of the story real or a hallucination?
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
It was as the meerkats were hauling the fish out of the pond, displaying real feats of teamwork, that I noticed something curious: every fish, without exception, was already dead.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
