gray fox
1
5.7
- noun
- /ɡreɪ fɑks/
- US
:
zorro gris
- Too, this unique region also hosts an impressive array of other wildlife, including blacktail prairie dogs, gray foxes, and piglike javelinas.
- a gray fox and skunk
Examples
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Some of the animals that enjoy these wild grapes are the gray fox, black bear, coyote, raccoon, and many different types of birds.
Blog text (20) -
A gray fox stared at her, a squeaking mouse dangling from its mouth.
Fiction book (1995) -
Just before daybreak, I saw a bushy gray fox.
Fiction book (1998) -
So did every bird, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, and gray fox within miles.
Fiction book (2002) -
These included pigeons, squirrels, skunks, and a gray fox.
Blog text (7) -
The ranch also supports black bears, bobcats, kit foxes, and gray foxes.
Academic text (2001) -
On the mainland, with its many predatory hazards, gray foxes move cautiously by night.
Academic text (2010) -
A few gray foxes, or perhaps a single pregnant female, were caught up in the flood and rafted out to the northern islands on heaps of flotsam.
Academic text (2010) -
She expects her cameras will also photograph deer, red and gray foxes, red and gray squirrels, raccoons, opossums, cottontail rabbits, and maybe coyotes.
Blog text (12) -
While hiking in the woods, I spotted a gray fox climbing a tree with surprising agility.
Synonyms
A small fox with grey fur that can climb trees
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound noun 'gray fox' is directly and literally composed from 'gray' (having gray fur) and 'fox' (the animal), so its meaning as a fox with gray/dark-grey fur is immediately derivable. This adjective+noun pattern is common across languages and standard in English, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand it.
Etymology
The name gray fox comes from the animal's gray fur and its habit of climbing trees. People who saw a gray fox disappear up a trunk called it that to mean a small, 'tree-climbing' fox, so today the term still refers to that species.