suricate

(redirected from suricates)
Also found in: Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.

su·ri·cate

(so͝or′ĭ-kāt′)

[French, from obsolete Dutch surikat, macaque, probably of South African origin.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

suricate

(ˈsjʊərɪˌkeɪt)

(Animals) the slender-tailed meerkat. See meerkat

[C18: from French surikate, probably from a native South African word]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

su•ri•cate

(ˈsʊər ɪˌkeɪt)

n.

a small burrowing South African colonial viverrid, Suricata suricatta, related to the mongooses.

Also called meerkat.

[1775–85; earlier surikate < French < Dutch surikat macaque]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

suricate - burrowing diurnal meerkat of southern Africa; often kept as a pet

Suricata tetradactyla

meerkat, mierkat - a mongoose-like viverrine of South Africa having a face like a lemur and only four toes

Translations

suricate

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

The acoustic structure of suricates' alarm calls varies with predator type and the level of response urgency.

Characteristics and Behavioral Correlates of Call Types in a Tropical Bird, the Pied Bush Chat Saxicola caprata

For the uninitiated, meerkats (aka suricates) are matriarchal lemur-like South African mongeese whose habit of alertly standing on two legs for long periods of time gives them a cuteness that no amount of intra-species warfare can completely dispel.