chipmunk
/ˈt͡ʃɪp.mʌŋk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.74 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of certain the small, striped rodents, all found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk, placed in the taxonomic subtribe Tamiina.
verb
To speed up (an audio recording, especially a song), to make the voices high-pitched.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "The Dipset capo favors breezy, bass-heavy beats instead of chipmunked soul samples to celebrate the 'hood's favorite season."
- "Less than a minute to go and she's chewing almost viciously, her stuffed cheeks all chipmunked out like Dizzy Gillespie's in midsolo."
- "She chipmunked her breakfast into a porcelain cheek."
Etymology
1832; alteration (influenced by chipping squirrel) of earlier chitmunk, from older Ojibwe ačitamo˙nˀ (“squirrels”) (modern ajidamoo), literally ‘those who descend headlong’, from ačit- (“headfirst, face-down”) (compare modern ajijibizo (“he falls headfirst”), ajidagoojin (“he hangs upside down”)). The English verb developed due to the high-pitched voices of the American puppet and cartoon chipmunks in the group Alvin and the Chipmunks, who later starred in a popular children's TV show in the 1980s.
Word Breakdown
- Root: ačitamo˙nˀ