otter shrew
- noun
- South African
:
musaraña de nutrias
- Researchers observed an otter shrew catching insects along the riverbank.
Examples
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The rare otter shrew spends much of its life swimming in African rivers.
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Unlike true otters, the otter shrew belongs to a completely different mammalian family.
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The otter shrew is a fascinating creature.
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Did you see the otter shrew at the zoo?
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Researchers observed an otter shrew catching insects along the riverbank.
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The rare otter shrew spends much of its life swimming in African rivers.
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Unlike true otters, the otter shrew belongs to a completely different mammalian family.
Synonyms
A small African swimming animal like an otter that eats insects
A small water mammal like an otter that lives in Central African rivers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'otter shrew' is directly compositional: combining 'otter' (an aquatic carnivore) with 'shrew' (a small mammal) yields a shrew-like animal with otter-like, semi‑aquatic features. This noun+noun descriptive pattern is common and cross‑linguistically predictable, so a B1 learner knowing both constituents can infer the basic meaning.
Etymology
The name otter shrew comes from how the animal looks: people saw a small animal that lived in water and thought it looked like an otter but was the size of a shrew, so they put the two names together. That's why otter shrew means a small African mammal that lives in water and eats insects.
