muskrat
Americannoun
-
a large, aquatic, North American rodent, Ondatra zibethica, having a musky odor.
-
its thick, light-brown fur, used for coats, for hats, as a trimming, etc.
noun
-
a North American beaver-like amphibious rodent, Ondatra zibethica, closely related to but larger than the voles: family Cricetidae
-
the brown fur of this animal
-
either of two closely related rodents, Ondatra obscurus or Neofiber alleni ( round-tailed muskrat )
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of muskrat
1680–90, alteration, by folk etymology, of musquash
Compare meaning
How does muskrat compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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:
The most popular mullet of today isn’t the spiky Bowie version or the luxurious muskrat look from “Joe Dirt.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2022
Ms. Carter walked over with her camera and zoomed in on the dead muskrat, now on its back with its feet in the air.
From New York Times ● Aug. 30, 2022
According to Groenewold, the wild fur buyer, the market for one-time mainstays like raccoon and muskrat is one-tenth the size it was a decade ago.
From Salon ● Jan. 12, 2022
A muskrat population oscillates 33 above and below average during the year, reaching the lowest value in January.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 1, 2021
It was flat and stiff and mostly black, and Palmer never in a million years would have guessed it had once been a muskrat.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
While these mussels are not harvested for human consumption, larger species, like waterbirds, raccoons, muskrats and otters, regularly eat freshwater mussels, meaning the contamination could pass up the food chain, Pankratz said.
From Science Daily ● May 31, 2024
A city where bullfrogs sing in marshes, where otters and muskrats frolic along the waterfront, and where kingfishers perform aerial acrobatics into ponds thick with fish.
From Slate ● Aug. 31, 2023
Mussels help the ecosystem in other ways, too: Their beds make a good habitat for insects, and the mussels are a food source for muskrats and otters.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 28, 2023
Likewise, muskrats, which have a lot of fur on their ears, are often misidentified as beavers, which don’t.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2022
Somewhere under there, they knew, was the den of a family of muskrats.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
