ground squirrel
2
3.5
- noun
- /ɡraʊnd ˈskwɜrəl/
:
ardilla terrestre
- All the new grass, bushes, and acorns meant there would be plenty of food for lots of mice, rabbits, and ground squirrels.
- ground squirrel (Spermophilus)
- mantled ground squirrels
- golden-mantled ground squirrels
Examples
-
There are plenty of mammals, from blue whales to California ground squirrels, but not all are easy to photograph.
Academic text (2006) -
About an hour into the game run, we saw a ground squirrel, but he disappeared into a hole before I could adjust my holo camera.
Fiction book (1994) -
Indeed, ground squirrels have much to teach about brain regeneration.
Academic text (2007) -
So it's all the more mysterious that ground squirrels bother to warm up every ten days or so.
Academic text (2007) -
The Arctic ground squirrel, in particular, may be the most extreme case.
Academic text (2007) -
There were chittering sounds, like ground squirrels make, but no animal or bird revealed itself.
Fiction book (1991) -
The freshly roused adult ground squirrel can accomplish the same growth in just two hours.
Academic text (2007) -
For instance, cold-temperature hibernators, such as bats and ground squirrels, put themselves through rigors that would kill us.
Academic text (2007) -
The distant chatter of ground squirrels on the rock-strewn slopes.
Fiction book (2002) -
While hiking in the forest, we spotted a ground squirrel gathering nuts near its burrow.
Synonyms
A small animal like a ground squirrel that lives in burrows and often damages crops
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a squirrel that lives on or in the ground' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'ground' (the earth's surface) with 'squirrel' (a small rodent); the compound denotes a subtype of squirrel associated with the ground rather than trees. This modifier+head noun pattern is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The compound ground squirrel comes from the simple image of a squirrel that lives on the ground, not in trees. Ground plus squirrel shows a small animal that digs and lives in holes, so the name means 'a squirrel that lives on or under the ground'.