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Glite Dictionary
dormouse

dormouse

3 6.9
A small furry animal like a mouse with a bushy tail that sleeps through winter
  • noun
  • /ˈdɔrˌmaʊs/
  • UK
translation icon : dormilón
  • The White Rabbit, the Dormouse, the Cheshire Cat, and some tarts make guest appearances from Alice in Wonderland.

Examples

  • During the cold season, the dormouse hibernates in a cozy burrow underground.

  • - The dormouse is asleep again.

    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

  • - That must be very uncomfortable for the dormouse.

    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

  • At any rate, the dormouse said, and after that, I cut some more bread and butter.

    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

  • This holds true, for example, for the five-inch-long pouched dormouse and the vulpine opossum.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The dormouse curled up in its nest, ready to sleep through the winter months.

  • In the forest, we spotted a dormouse nestled among the branches of a tree.

Idioms

like a dormouse
  • Informal
8.8

Sleeping very deeply and not waking easily

Surface Forms

dormouse singular
dormice plural

Morphology

dormouse = dorm + mouse (semi-transparent) = dorm + mouse

While the element 'mouse' is obvious, 'dorm-' is not a productive standalone English morpheme meaning 'sleep' for most learners, so the compound is only partly guessable.

Etymology

The word dormouse comes from the part dorm-, from Latin dormire meaning 'to sleep', plus the animal name mouse, so it literally means 'sleeping mouse'. That's why a dormouse is a small animal like a mouse that often goes into a long sleep in winter.