Animal names/verbs

[RonBee]

How about "duck"? (Possibly from the movements a duck makes when it is going after food.)

[BobK]

Sorry Ron - that was pretty low-hanging fruit, picked way back.

TD's list was very impressive. A couple of them were new to me ('to whale' and to 'mole out'); and 'mole out' didn't have a definition. Is it "to extract a secret surreptitiously"? If so, I'd expect another animal - to weasel out (though, come to think of it, that not so much surreptiously as 'by hard/concentrated/faintly hostile/persistent effort' - "she didn't want to tell me, but in the end I weaseled it out of her".

b

[SUDHKAMP]

What about 'Shark' and 'Octopus'?

[thedaffodils]

Originally Posted by BobK

TD's list was very impressive. A couple of them were new to me ('to whale' and to 'mole out'); and 'mole out' didn't have a definition. Is it "to extract a secret surreptitiously"? If so, I'd expect another animal - to weasel out (though, come to think of it, that not so much surreptiously as 'by hard/concentrated/faintly hostile/persistent effort' - "she didn't want to tell me, but in the end I weaseled it out of her".

b

Hi BobK,

Thank you for your encouragement and correction.

I just found "mole out" in my English-Chinese dictionary, which defines "mole out" as unearth something out. I've found there are several mistakes in it. Please let me delete it from my list.

[thedaffodils]

bug:
v.tr.
To annoy; pester.
To prey on; worry:
a memory that bugged me for years.
To equip (a room or telephone circuit, for example) with a concealed electronic listening device.
To make (the eyes) bulge or grow large.

cricket:
To play the game of cricket.

eagle:
v.tr.
To shoot (a hole in golf) in two strokes under par.
v.intr.
To score an eagle in golf.

beetle:
To make one's way or move like a beetle:
“Chambermaids . . . beetled from bedroom to bedroom loaded with . . . champagne”(Vanity Fair)


cocoon:
v.tr.
To envelop in or as if in a cocoon, as for protection from a harsh or unfriendly environment.
v.intr.
To retreat as if into a cocoon, as for security from a harsh or unfriendly environment.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by thedaffodils

...
beetle:
To make one's way or move like a beetle:
“Chambermaids . . . beetled from bedroom to bedroom loaded with . . . champagne”(Vanity Fair)
...

The significant feature of beetling is that there have to be several people doing it (as in that quote). Eyebrows can beetle as well - I don't know if this is derived from the beetle (insect) analogy or whether it's another word entirely - that just happens, coincidentally, to be a pun.

Incidentally, on the subject of unrelated words, 'sow' the (animal) and 'sow' (what you do with seeds) are unrelated (I should think) - and not even puns. The animal is /saʊ/, and the verb is /sǝʊ/

b

[BobK]

Afterthought about weaseling; you can winkle out the truth as well; the winkle is a shell-fish - they're usually served in their shells. (In the 1950s there was a fashion for shoes with long/pointed toes, called winkle-pickers.)

b

[thedaffodils]

lark about:

to have a good time frolicking or playing pranks [origin unknown]
lark - definition of lark by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

kite:
v.intr.
To fly like a kite; soar or glide.
To get money or credit with a kite.
v.tr.
To use (a bad check) to sustain credit or raise money.
To increase the amount of (a check) fraudulently.

monkey:
v.intr.Informal
To play, fiddle, trifle, or tamper with something.
To behave in a mischievous or apish manner:
Stop monkeying around!
v.tr.
To imitate or mimic; ape.

toady:

A toady is not a pleasant individual,and the origin of the word makes being a toady even less pleasant.Toady is obviously derived from the word toad. The-y suffix can have diminutive force, and the earliest recorded sense (around 1690) oftoady (now obsolete), “a little or young toad,” illustrates this force. The sense we know has nothing to do with baby toadsbut rather with the practice of certain quacks or charlatans who claimed that they could cast out poison.Toads were thought to be poisonous,so these charlatans would have an attendant eat a toad or pretend to eat oneand then remove the poison from the attendant.Such an attendant is obviously a type of person who would do anything,and thustoadeater (first recorded 1629) was the perfect name for a flattering, fawning parasite. Toadeater and the verb derived from it, toadeat, influenced the sense of the noun and verb toad and the noun toady, so that both nouns could mean “sycophant”and the verbtoady could mean “to act like a toady to someone.”

leapfrog: (though leapfrog is not an animal, but is relevant to frog)

v.tr.
To jump over in or as if in leapfrog.
To advance (two military units) by engaging one with the enemy while moving the other to a position forward of the first unit.
To avoid by or as if by a roundabout route.
v.intr.
To move forward or progress in or as if in leapfrog

gull

: to take advantage of (one who is foolish or unwary) : deceive

[Anglika]

The kite is the thing you fly on a string, rather than the bird

[thedaffodils]

Hi Anglika,

Kite is the name of this kind of bird. Wikipedia has its introduction. Here's the URL link and its picture.

Kite (bird - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)