wood pussy
- noun
- /wʊd ˈpʌsi/
- Informal
:
mofeta
- Everyone in the car grimaced when a wood pussy crossed the road and sprayed.
Examples
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Grandpa warned us not to get too close to a wood pussy if we saw one in the garden.
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The scent of a wood pussy lingered in the air after our evening walk through the woods.
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I spotted a wood pussy in the garden.
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Have you ever seen a wood pussy up close?
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Everyone in the car grimaced when a wood pussy crossed the road and sprayed.
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Grandpa warned us not to get too close to a wood pussy if we saw one in the garden.
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The scent of a wood pussy lingered in the air after our evening walk through the woods.
Synonyms
31
1.0
A small black and white mammal that sprays a strong bad smell
Surface Forms
Morphology
wood + pussy
The meaning 'skunk' cannot be derived from combining 'wood' (a wooded area) with 'pussy' (ambiguous here and not given a clear lexical sense); a B1 learner knowing the parts would likely infer something like 'wood cat' rather than an odor‑defending mammal. This is a regional, idiomatic name whose referent is not transparently signaled by the constituents, so it would be unpredictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Wood pussy may come from the words wood, meaning the woods, and pussy, an old friendly word for a small furry animal or cat; people pictured a cat-like animal in the woods that defends itself with a very strong smell, so wood pussy came to mean the 'skunk'.