comadreja

comadreja

Spanish

Etymology

From comadre (“midwife; godmother”) +‎ -eja (diminutive suffix), said to be after its sinuous and nimble (and therefore “feminine”) figure. Compare equivalents in other Romance languages (Italian donnola, Portuguese doninha, Galician doniña, Romanian nevăstuică) but not only (Greek νυφίτσα (nyfítsa), Danish brud, Arabic اِبْن عِرْس‎ (ibn ʿirs)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /komaˈdɾexa/ [ko.maˈð̞ɾe.xa]

• Audio (Spain)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -exa
• Syllabification: co‧ma‧dre‧ja

Noun

comadreja f (plural comadrejas)

1. weasel (Mustela nivalis)

   Synonyms: comadreja común, comadreja menor

2. weasel, marten (a mammal of the genus Mustela)
3. weasel (mammal unrelated to the genus Mustela)

   Hyponym: comadreja rayada africana (“African striped weasel”)

4. (Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) An opossum, especially the white-eared opossum Didelphis Albiventris.

   Synonyms: zarigüeya, comadreja overa

Further reading

• “comadreja”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
• comadreja on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es