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otter

UK/ˈɒtə/US/ˈɑtɚ/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,258 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: otters

An otter is a playful river animal that floats on its back to crack shells open. A river otter, otters playing, spot an otter.

The sea otter is the one that floats and uses a stone as a tool, and it has the densest fur of any animal because it has no blubber to keep it warm. British otters nearly vanished from pesticides in the 1960s and have recovered well.

Bernard Landgraf · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of otter

  1. 1nounotterA playful river or sea animal that eats fish and shellfish.C1

    “An otter slid down the riverbank and swam off with a fish.”

otter is an animal.

Where it comes from

Old English otor names the animal, from a Germanic root related to a word for water. Water and otter are distant relatives.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *wed-

  2. Proto-Indo-European

    *udrós — aquatic, water-animal

  3. Proto-Germanic

    *utraz

  4. Proto-West Germanic

    *otr

  5. Old English

    otor

  6. Middle English

    oter

  7. English, today

    otter

From Middle English oter, otir, otur, otyre, from Old English otor, from Proto-West Germanic otr, from Proto-Germanic utraz, from Proto-Indo-European udrós (“aquatic, water-animal”), from Proto-Indo-European wed- (“water”). Cognate with stq Otter, Dutch otter, German Otter, Swedish utter, Norwegian oter, Icelandic otur, Sanskrit उद्र, Russian вы́дра, and Ancient Greek ὕδρα (“water snake”). a doublet of Hydra and hydra. More etymology under English water.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Animals

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otter in the wild

  • The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean.

    Sea otter

  • Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg, making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals.

    Sea otter

  • The Asian small-clawed otter (Lutra cinerea), also called oriental small-clawed otter and small-clawed otter, is an otter species native to South and Southeast Asia.

    Asian small-clawed otter

  • With a total body length of 730 to 960 mm, and a maximum weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 lb), it is the smallest otter species.

    Asian small-clawed otter

  • The river otter is protected and insulated by a thick, water-repellent coat of fur.

    North American river otter

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.