weasel

Pluralweasels

Formsweasels

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A slender carnivorous mammal with a long body and tail, usually brown above and pale below, that preys on small animals.

   A weasel slipped under the henhouse and was gone before the farmer could react.

   Weasels can chase rodents into burrows too narrow for most predators.

   Note

   A naturalist's word for a whole group rather than a single animal: it covers slender hunters across the genera Mustela, Neogale, Poecilogale and Lyncodon. The name has come down unbroken from Old English weosule through Middle English wesele, and it can also narrow to the least weasel alone. The plural is the regular weasels.

2. 2
   nounderogatorycolloquialcountable

   A devious or sneaky person, or an animal that behaves the same way.

   He's a weasel who takes credit for others' work and dodges every bit of blame.

   The weasels in management threw the whole team under the bus.

   Similarsnake, sneak, rat

   Note

   The animal's supposed cunning gives the word its sting, and the same reputation later produced the verbs. It is an insult, not a neutral description. Calling someone a weasel accuses them of slipperiness and bad faith, and it comes easily to political commentary: Marwan Bishara in 2016 dismissed Donald Trump and Ben Carson as "the other two weasels." Keep it out of writing meant to sound even-handed.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To behave in a clever or devious way.

   Politicians weasel whenever they're asked a direct question.

   He weaseled out of the contract on a technicality.

   Similarequivocate, hedge, dodge, wriggle

   Note

   With no object, the verb names the evasion itself rather than any gain. To weasel on a topic is to hedge around it, as Stefan Bechtel and Larry Stains say authority figures have done. To weasel out of something is to escape an obligation through a loophole. These two prepositions are the usual frames, and both carry the reproach of the insult.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To achieve something through clever or devious means.

   She weaseled a promotion by taking credit for the team's results.

   Lobbyists weasel exemptions out of lawmakers every session.

   Similarwangle, finagle, wheedle

   Note

   Verbs from the animal arrived late, around 1900, borrowing the reputation behind the insult. Their spelling splits by side of the Atlantic. American English writes weaseled and weaseling with one l, and British English writes weaselled and weaselling with two. Used transitively, the verb takes the prize as its object, as in weaseling day passes or a promotion.

5. 5
   verbreflexivetransitive

   To obtain something for oneself through cunning or underhanded means.

   She weaseled a corner office for herself before anyone else could ask.

   Somehow he manages to weasel free upgrades for himself on every flight.

   Similarwangle, finagle

   Note

   Here the construction carries the meaning: a reflexive pronoun or "one's way," then into. Tony Ruggiero's Alien Deception (2006) has a man who has weaseled himself into a position of influence. Susie Davis's Uncovered (2010) has a dog weaseling her way into the family's hearts, which shows the verb can turn almost affectionate when the schemer is charming.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A small mustelid, Mustela nivalis, the tiniest member of the weasel family.

   A weasel slipped through a gap no wider than a wedding ring, its body barely thicker than a thumb.

   Hardly longer than the vole it hunts, the weasel vanished into the grass.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   Any of certain other species belonging to the family Mustelidae.

   The gamekeeper called the pine marten just a big weasel.

   A weasel slunk along the bank (likely a polecat, judging by its dark mask).

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A yarn winder for measuring the yardage of handspun yarn, with a peg that pops up after a set number of yards have been wound.

   She fed the handspun yarn onto the weasel, listening for the peg to pop after each hundred yards.

   Every yard wound onto the weasel brought the hidden peg closer to springing up.

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