Other forms: ermines
Ermine is the white winter fur of a stoat, used to trim robes. Trimmed with ermine, an ermine robe, the ermine of state.
The stoat turns white in winter except for the black tail tip, and the black dots on a ceremonial robe are those tips set in the white. It marked rank so strictly that medieval law limited who might wear it, and it survives on judges and peers.
1nounermineThe white winter fur of a stoat, used to trim robes.
“The king's red velvet robe was trimmed with white ermine.”
ermine is a fur.
ERMINE → VERMIN made into a coat
The small white animal is vermin to a farmer and a coat to a king.
hooks ontovermin
Old French ermine, of disputed origin, possibly from a Germanic word or from Latin mus Armenius, the Armenian mouse.
Medieval Latin
mūs Armenius — Armenian mouse
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱormō
Proto-Germanic
*harmǭ
Old French
ermin
Middle English
ermine
English, today
ermine
Built from
From Middle English ermine, ermin, ermyn, from Old French ermin, ermine, hermine. There are two main theories for the origin of Old French ermine. gem origin is suggested via Old Dutch harmino (“stoat skin”), from harmo (“stoat, weasel”) (compare Dutch hermelijn and dialectal herm), from Proto-Germanic harmǭ, harmô (compare Old English hearma, Old High German harmo (harmin, obsolete German Harm), from Proto-Indo-European ḱormō (compare rm carmun, obsolete Lithuanian šarmuõ). Romance sources identify the animal with the corresponding word for Armenian, possibly from Medieval Latin mūs Armenius (“Armenian mouse”) or a posterior compound.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA