The AI-powered English dictionary
plural hamsters
Any of various Old-World rodent species belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae.
especially of species Mesocricetus auratus (the golden hamster) and species of genus Phodopus (dwarf hamsters), often kept as a pet or used in scientific research. examples
Other rodents of similar appearance, such as the maned hamster or crested hamster, Lophiomys imhausi, mouse-like hamsters of genus Calomyscus, and the white-tailed rat (Mystromys albicaudatus). examples
third-person singular simple present hamsters, present participle hamstering, simple past and past participle hamstered
(transitive, intransitive) To secrete or store privately, as a hamster does with food in its cheek pouches. quotations examples
Probably the city government knew that without that hamstering half the city would starve and they somehow got the police to lay off. It was in the little stinky one-horse towns that you had all the trouble.
1974, Phyllis Knight, Rolf Knight, A Very Ordinary Life, page 43
[…] in his bedroom in neat stacks — he always hamstered them away upstairs as soon as the morning was done. This year the gifts sat ignored […]
2004, Sharon L. Pywell, What Happened to Henry, page 50
[…] eastern children frequently “hamstered,” smuggled, and begged across the boundary, especially after currency reform […]
2014, Edith Sheffer, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain