Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various small burrowing rodents chiefly of the genus Meriones found in arid regions of Africa and Asia, having large dark eyes and a long furry tail and including the domesticated gerbil.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any of several North African gerbils.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of various rodents of the genera Meriones, Sekeetamys, Brachiones, and sometimes Pachyuromys, an agricultural pest.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun gerbil of northern Africa

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Colloquial Maghrebi Arabic jird, rat, jird, ultimately from Arabic juraḏ; see grḏ in Semitic roots.]

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Examples

  • Common rodents are gerbil Gerbillus dasyurus and the Sundevall's jird Meriones crassus.

    Arabian Oryx Sanctuary, Oman 2008

  • Cheng's jird is a gerbil that is classified by IUCN as critically endangered.

    Junggar Basin semi-desert 2008

  • This ecoregion contains a single endemic mammal, Cheng's jird (Meriones chengi).

    Junggar Basin semi-desert 2008

  • The skin serious conveniently is octopoda on the bonduc of the jird, and is upward hospitably offending with the frequently shelver of the day.

    Rational Review 2009

  • Most of these species are small mammals and include four-toed jerboa (Allactaga tetradactyla, EN), North African gerbil (Gerbillus campestris), James's gerbil (G. jamesi), pale gerbil (G. perpallidus), lesser short-tailed gerbil (G. simoni) and sand gerbil (G. syrticus, CR), fat-tailed gerbil (Pachyuromys duprasi), and Shaw's jird (Meriones shawi).

    North Saharan steppe and woodlands 2008

  • Small mammals and their predators are also abundant,, including hyrax (Procavia capensis), brown hare (Lepus capensis), spiny mouse (Acomys spp.), large North African gerbil (Gerbillus campestris), Nigerian gerbil (G. nigeriae), bushy-tailed jird (Sekeetamys calurus) and three different fox species, Rueppel's sandfox (Vulpes rueppelli), sand fox (Vulpes pallida) and Fennec fox (Fennecus zerda).

    Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands 2007

  • Most of these endemics are rodents, including Dahl’s jird (Meriones dahli, EN) and the recently described Microtus quzvinensis, a vole from northern Iran.

    Biological diversity in the Irano-Anatolian 2008

Comments

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  • any of several North African gerbils.

    May 22, 2010

  • How many North African gerbils do you have?

    May 22, 2010

  • One huge one. Albino.

    May 22, 2010