squirrels

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of squirrel.

   Gray squirrels store nuts in dozens of scattered caches before winter.

   The park's squirrels have grown bold enough to take food from outstretched hands.

   Note

   One spelling serves the whole family of nouns. Zoologists' squirrels are any rodents of the Sciuridae, though everyday use pictures the bushy-tailed tree kinds. The plural also counts people who hoard or pilfer, and the small rollers that work against a carding machine's large cylinder. Keep it apart from the verb form, as in she squirrels coins in a jar, where the word is an action.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of squirrel.

   My grandmother squirrels old letters and photographs into shoeboxes under her bed.

   The company quietly squirrels a portion of its profits into an offshore reserve.

   Note

   Two quite different verbs share this form, and the object tells them apart. With an object, usually followed by away, it means hiding something for later: she squirrels away her savings. With no object it means becoming distracted. A sentence that leaves a squirrel without anything to stash is almost always about wandering attention, not hoarding.

   He squirrels away every spare dollar he earns.

   She squirrels whenever the meeting runs long.

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