Other forms: weasels
A weasel is a small slender fierce hunting animal. A weasel in the hedge, quick as a weasel, weasel words.
It is long and thin enough to follow prey into burrows, and it must eat about a third of its body weight a day to keep warm. Weasel words are phrases that sound like a claim and commit to nothing, named from the belief that a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell whole.
1nounweaselA small slender fierce hunting animal.
“A weasel slipped through a gap in the fence and attacked the chickens.”
weasel is an animal.
Old English weosule names the animal, from a Germanic root. The verb sense dates from about 1900, from the animal's reputation for cunning.
Middle English
wēsele
English, today
weasel
From Middle English wēsele. From Middle English wesele, from Old English weosule, from Proto-West Germanic wisulā, from Proto-Germanic wisulǭ. The verb is from c. 1900, from the supposed cunningness of the weasel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA