cotton rat
- noun
- /ˈkɑtən ræt/
- US
:
rata algodonera
- Farmers often complain about cotton rats damaging their fields.
Examples
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The cotton rat builds intricate burrows that can damage crop roots.
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Researchers studied disease transmission among cotton rats in the wild.
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Farmers often struggle to control cotton rat populations in their fields.
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The cotton rat is known for its burrowing habits.
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The cotton rat is known for causing damage to farmers' crops in southern regions.
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Farmers worry about the cotton rat because it can quickly reproduce and destroy fields of corn.
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Many agricultural experts are studying the cotton rat to find ways to control its impact on crops.
Synonyms
A small mammal like a rat with long fur that lives in burrows in southern North America and Central America
A small wild rat that lives in the Americas
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'cotton rat' is a straightforward noun+noun formation where 'cotton' modifies 'rat', so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it is a type of rat associated with cotton (e.g., found in cotton fields or related to cotton plants). This compositional pattern is regular in English and common cross-linguistically for species/agent names, making the meaning predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Cotton rat comes from farmers who found this rat living in cotton fields and eating or damaging the plants. Because it dug burrows and often ruined crops, the name came to mean this burrowing animal that is a 'pest' to farms.
