flittermouse
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "I thank thee, gentle flittermouse, for these so pleasant memories. Have you ever caught and examined a flittermouse?"
- "1894, Philip Stewart Robinson, Birds of the Wave and Woodland, Electronic Edition, unnumbered page, The bats wheel overhead, their soft wings crumpling as they turn their somersaults, but never a voice in the air, save sharp needle-points of sound, as flittermouse calls to flittermouse."
- "Now while they rested, a flittermouse flew forth from the Witchland booths and went widdershins round the wrastling ground and so returned silently whence she came."
- "They don't bump into folk, blind people don't. They're like flittermice. You never saw two flittermice bump into each other."
Etymology
From flitter + mouse (compare flickermouse, flindermouse), after Middle Dutch fleddermuys, vledermuys, vlermuys (Modern Dutch vleermuis), from vledderen, vlederen (“to flutter, float, hover”) + muys (“mouse”). Cognate with West Frisian flearmûs (“bat”), Middle Low German vledermūs (“bat”), German Fledermaus (“bat”), Swedish fladdermus (“bat”) and flädermus (“bat”). More at flitter, flutter, flatter, mouse.
Word Breakdown
- Root: fleddermuys