squirrel
part of speech
noun (a squirrel, squirrels); verb (squirrel away — informal)
meaning for a pupil
1) A small furry animal with a long bushy tail that lives in trees, eats nuts and seeds, and can climb and jump very well. tree →
2) (verb, squirrel away) To hide or save things to use later. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science, squirrels are rodents and mammals; many bury nuts in autumn to eat in winter and forget some, which helps new trees grow. In Britain, the grey squirrel from America has replaced most native red squirrels. In safety, don't feed or try to touch wild squirrels — they can bite. Phrases: «grey/red squirrel», «squirrel away».
examples
- A squirrel ran up the tree with a nut. tree →
- Squirrels bury nuts in autumn to eat in winter. tree →
- Red squirrels are rare in Britain now. tree →
- The squirrel's bushy tail helps it balance. tree →
- Squirrels forget some nuts, and these grow into trees. tree →
- Don't try to touch a squirrel; it can bite. tree →
- She squirrelled away her pocket money in a jar. tree →
- A grey squirrel stole the bird food again. tree →
- After them hopped in a number of squirrels. tree →
note
Countable. British: squirrelled; American: squirreled. Said «SKWIR-ul» (British) or «SKWURL» (American). Most squirrels don't hibernate; they just rest more in cold weather. Flying squirrels glide, they don't really fly.
In the corpora
- Meerkats are a kind of mongoose, not a kind of rat or squirrel.
- The aye-aye's teeth keep growing like a rodent's, so scientists first thought it was a kind of squirrel.
- Real squirrels bury nuts and forget many of them, so the nuts grow into new trees.
- Squirrel monkeys travel in big troops and often follow capuchin monkeys to find fruit trees, and many eyes spot eagles sooner.
- A squirrel can run down a tree head first because its back ankles turn round so its claws hook into the bark facing up.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «squirrel» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.