eastern chipmunk
- noun
- /ˈiːstərn ˈʧɪpmʌŋk/
- US
:
ardilla listada oriental
- The eastern chipmunk quickly scurried up the tree, storing food in its cheek pouches.
Examples
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We spotted an eastern chipmunk walking along the garden path, its stripes standing out in the sunlight.
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I saw an eastern chipmunk gather acorns in the park near my house.
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So if you take a cute little Eastern chipmunk and you look into its body, you find that there are specific places where it has deposits of brown fat.
Synonyms
31
1.8
A small striped animal like a squirrel that lives on the ground and stores food in its cheeks
1
9.9
A small striped squirrel in eastern North America that fills its cheeks with food for later
A small squirrel from eastern North America with dark stripes on its back that stores food in its cheek pouches
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward composition of the adjective 'eastern' (relating to the east) and the noun 'chipmunk' (a small striped rodent), so its meaning — a chipmunk from the eastern region — is directly derivable from the constituents. This locative modifier + noun pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows standard English composition, making it readily understandable to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Eastern chipmunk gets its name from two parts: eastern shows where it lives, and chipmunk probably comes from a Native American word that sounded like 'chipmunk' and named the little striped animal that fills its cheek pouches with food. So eastern chipmunk means the 'small striped rodent' found in the eastern United States and Canada.