# woodchuck

Pronunciation: US say "WUUD-chuk" /ˈwʊd.t͡ʃʌk/; UK

## Noun

1. A rodent of the squirrel family, one of the large ground squirrels known as marmots (Marmota monax). *(dialectal, Northern US)*
   - Simple: A large, heavy wild animal in the squirrel family that lives on the ground.
   - _A woodchuck has dug a burrow under the shed, and the dog barks at the hole every morning._
   - _A Vermont farmer set a live trap for the woodchucks raiding his bean field._

## Origin

Borrowed from Cree ocêk or otchek ("fisher"), which was borrowed from Ojibwe ojiig ("fisher, marten") or a similar word in a related Algonquian language, and later applied to the groundhog. An earlier form of the word, woodshock, is still sometimes used for the marten, and woodchuck is also a doublet of wejack.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/woodchuck (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).