squirrel
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skwuruhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈskwɝəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae.
especiallywhen without a qualifier
Any of those distinguished typically by a large bushy tail; any of the tree squirrels of subfamily Sciurinae or phenotypically similar sciurids.
A kind of arboreal rodent having a long bushy tail
Someone who displays squirrel-like qualities such as stealing or hoarding objects.
The fur of a squirrel
One of the small rollers of a carding machine which work with the large cylinder.
verb
transitive
To store in a secretive manner, to hide something for future use
intransitive
To become distracted
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae.
Used this way, squirrel is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.