Forms: 4 fyrette, 5 for-, feret(te, 5–7 firret(te, 7 ferrit, 6– ferret. [a. OF. (? *firet), fuiret, furet (mod.F. furet) = It. furetto, dim. of the Com. Rom. word which appears in OF. as firon, fuiron (:—L. type *fūriōn-em), furon = Pr. furon. Cat. furó, Sp. huron (earlier furon), Pg. furão:—late L. fūrōn-em, recorded in 7th c. by Isidore, Etym., XII. ii. § 39; usually identified with late L. fūrōn-em robber (f. L. fūr thief; common in the Langobardic laws), whence It. furone robber.
The F. dim. was adopted as MDu. foret, furet, fret, mod.Du. fret, mod.G. frett, frettchen; the OF. furon appears in early mod.Du. veure, Westphal. vürn, denoting the same or a similar animal.]
1. A half-tamed variety of the common polecat (Putorius fœtidus), kept for the purpose of driving rabbits from their burrows, destroying rats, etc.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. lxxv. (1495), 829. A fyrette hyghte Migale and is a lytyll beest as it were a wesel.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 171/2. Forette, or ferette, lytyll beste.
a. 1400. Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.), I. 51. Heare are beares … squirelles, and firrette.
1581. Lambarde, Eirenarcha, IV. iv. (1588), 444. If any … Labourer have used firrets … to take or destroy Deere.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 647. Good hunters will neuer put their ferret into any earth, whose mouth they see stopt, for feare of disquieting the dam, and causing of her to kill her young ones.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, I. II. lxxxv.
| Strait Graculo with eyes as fierce as Ferrit | |
| Reply’d. |
1766. Pennant, Zool. (1768), I. 78. Warreners assert, that the fitchet will mix with the ferret.
1844. Penny Cycl., XXVII. 167/1. Ferrets should not be fed before they are taken to the warren.
1879. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), IX. 109/1, ‘Ferrier.’ The ferret is peculiarly intolerant of cold, and only survives the English winter by means of the artificial warmth to which, under domestication, it is accustomed.
b. transf. and fig.
1626. L. Owen, Spec. Jesuit. (1629), 66. These Ferrets (or if you will Iesuites).
1641. Milton, Reform., I. (1851), 31. Many of those that pretend to be great Rabbies in these studies have scarce saluted them from the strings, and the titlepage, or to give ’em more, have bin but the Ferrets and Moushunts of an Index.
1856. Boker, Poems, The Betrothal (1857), II. 25. A cunning ferret after doubtful phrases.
1891. Daily News, 19 June, 7/3. He engaged him as a kind of ferret or detective.
2. slang. a. A dunning tradesman (see quot. 1700). ? Obs. b. (See quot. 1889.) † c. A pawnbroker (Bailey, 1736). Obs.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Ferret, a Tradesman that sells Goods to young Unthrifts, upon Trust at excessive Rates, and then continually duns them for the debt.
1715. in New Cant. Dict.
1889. Barrère & Leland, Slang Dict., Ferret (thieves), a young thief who gets into a coal barge and throws coal over the side to his confederates.
3. attrib. and Comb.: simple attrib., as ferret-eye; parasynthetic and similative, as ferret-eyed, -faced, -like adjs. Also † ferret-claw v., fig. to scratch, claw like a ferret; to strip bare; ferret-eye, ‘the spur-winged goose, so called from the red circle around the eyes’ (Webster, 1890).
1591. Greene, Disc. Coosnage. So *ferret-claw him at cards that they leave him as bare of money, as an ape of a taile.
c. 1620. Fletcher, Wom. Pleased, III. iv.
| You whore, you cunning whore! I shall catch your rogue too: | |
| H’as light legs, else I had so ferret-claw’d him! |
1580. Sidney, Arcadia, II. The ladies laughed to see with what an eager earnestness she looked, having threatening, not only in her *ferret eyes, but, while she spake, her nose seeming to threaten her chin, and her shaking limbs one to threaten another.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. ii. 186.
| Calphurnia’s Cheeke is pale, and Cicero | |
| Lookes with such Ferret, and such fiery eyes | |
| As we haue seene him in the Capitoll | |
| Being crost in Conference, by some Senators. |
1781. Bentham, Wks. (1838–43), X. 104. My lady is a little shrivelled figure, of about sixty—with a hook nose, and ferret eyes, a long white beard, and a parchment mahogany-coloured skin.
1837. Marryat, Snarleyyow; or The Dog Fiend, xxxviii. Vanslyperken, whose peaked nose and chin, small ferret eyes, and downcast look were certainly not in his favour.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, *Ferret-eyed: or Eyes as red as a Ferret.
1850. Eb. Elliott, More Verse & Prose, Epigram I. 18.
| Prepare to meet the King of Terrors, cried | |
| To prayerless Want, his plunderer ferret-eyed: | |
| ‘I am the King of Terrors,’ Want replied. |
1870. L’Estrange, Miss Mitford, I. v. 156. They are really ferret-eyed this morning.
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., The Spectre of Tappington. A little *ferret-faced woman with underdone eyes.
1843. G. P. R. James, Forest Days, ii. His nose was decidedly the point of the epigram, standing out as a sort of sharp apex to a shrewd merry, *ferret-like face.
