(n.) Any one of various species of small carnivores belonging to the genus Putorius, as the ermine and ferret. They have a slender, elongated body, and are noted for the quickness of their movements and for their bloodthirsty habit in destroying poultry, rats, etc. The ermine and some other species are brown in summer, and turn white in winter; others are brown at all seasons.
Example Sentences:
(1) Brown weasels and white animals undergoing the spring change to the brown pelage and reproductive activity molted, grew a new white coat, and became reproductively quiescent after treatment.
(2) It is suggested that the pineal gland product, melatonin, initiates changes in the central nervous system and endocrines which result in molting, growth of the white winter pelage, and reproductive quiescence in the weasel.
(3) He said: “We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers’ claims.” Johnston said: “The good men and women of the Australian navy have been maliciously maligned by the ABC, and I am very dissatisfied of the very weasel words of apology that have been floated around.” “I have not said much because, I have to confess, I was extremely angry.
(4) While, today, none of us would take seriously politicians who bandy such weasel words about, these were quite the thing in the 60s.
(5) Their job involves eradicating animals that might want to eat these small game birds: foxes, stoats, weasels and, in the days when it was legal to do so, birds of prey.
(6) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was happy to go back on his weasel words of last week and congratulate Haley.
(7) So, until we see the parties at Westminster supporting and calling for the unity of the Irish people, we can only believe that the great calls of Cameron, Miliband and Clegg to the Scottish people are just weasel words intended to gull them into accepting the Westminster unionists’ status quo.
(8) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.
(9) Two short-tailed weasels tremored slightly within 10 min of arousal.
(10) To call Hoxha “tough” is more than a bit of a weasel word.
(11) They are members of the otter, badger and weasel family (the mustelids), that are at home both on the ground and in the trees.
(12) Paragonimus kellicotti Ward, 1908 was recovered from 16 of 105 mink (Mustela vison), 14 of 244 striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), 10 of 446 red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), 1 of 31 coyotes (Canis latrans), 0 of 326 raccoons (Procyon lotor) and 0 of 8 weasels (Mustela spp.)
(13) Muscular sarcosporidiosis is reported for the first time in the common European weasel, Mustela nivalis.
(14) Mike Pence’s weasel-speak in defense of Indiana’s RFRA wasn’t the political mistake.
(15) At a town hall in Willingboro, New Jersey, MacArthur was branded a “weasel”, a “killer” and an “idiot”.
(16) But a new managerialism – already familiar in universities and post-Kennett reforms – has infected the community sector, with weasel words its most obvious symptom.
(17) A 5 min exposure to the weasel elicited an analgesic response of longer duration (15-30 min) that was sensitive to both naloxone and the benzodiazepine agonist and antagonist.
(18) Over lunch, Clements is cheerful, charming and fizzing with ideas, so it is surprising to learn that colleagues once labelled him a "little weasel" and worse in a court case.
(19) - Victor Klemperer, 13 June 1934 We're fed this inert this lying phrase like comfort food as another little Palestinian boy in trainers jeans and a white teeshirt is gunned down by the Zionist SS whose initials we should - but we don't - dumb goys - clock in that weasel word crossfire
(20) However, the fence was only 2 feet (0.6 meter) high and did not stop the entrance of foxes, weasels, shrews, or avian predators.