stoat
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stoat
1425–75; late Middle English stote < ?
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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.
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This makes it yet another introduced species like the rat or stoat, with unpredictable behavior.
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2025
On one predator-free island—home to threatened species such as a flightless parrot called the kakapo—the government spent some $295,000 over eight months tracking down a single stoat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2024
Decked out at one point in a velvet blazer and turtleneck, hair teased into the likeness of a dead stoat, Robey is less demented sadist than disco king.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2023
Already, he has shown that temperature can predict when beech masting will occur and stoat control will be needed.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 23, 2021
He extended a yellow-gray finger, pointing directly at Pantalaimon, whose red-brown stoat form immediately became ermine white.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
They imported possums for fur, rabbits to hunt for sport, then ravenous stoats to control the rabbit population.
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2025
The carnivorous mammals are classed as an invasive species in the islands, and a culling programme for stoats began in 2019.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025
That means eradicating invasive species such as possums, rats and mustelids—a group that includes weasels, ferrets and stoats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2024
In 2005, several kiwis were placed in the Maungatautari sanctuary in a last-ditch effort to prevent them from being hunted to extinction by predators like stoats and ferrets.
From New York Times ● May 17, 2024
His fierce eye gazed out across the mighty army: black rats, brown rats, grey rats, piebald rats, skulking weasels, furtive stoats and sinuous ferrets, all gathered round, their weapons glistening and dripping with the rain.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
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.
