hamster

Etymology

Borrowed from German Hamster, from Middle High German hamster, from Old High German hamastra, hamustro (compare Old Saxon hamustra), probably from Old East Slavic хомѣсторъ (xoměstorŭ), хомѣстаръ (xoměstarŭ), compound of (1) хомѣкъ (xoměkŭ, “hamster”) (compare Russian хомя́к (xomják), Polish chomik), from Proto-Balto-Slavic *kāmjas (compare Latvian kāmis (“hamster”), Lithuanian kãmas (“rat”), and of (2) Proto-Balto-Slavic *staras (compare Lithuanian stãras (“ground squirrel”). Alternatively, a borrowing into Slavic from Iranian, compare Avestan 𐬵𐬀𐬨𐬀𐬉𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬭- (hamaēstar-, “who throws down (in this case: corn stalks), oppresses”). Displaced earlier term German rat.

noun

1. Any of various Old-World rodent species belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae.
   1. especially, the golden hamster, Mesocricetus auratus, and the dwarf hamsters of genus Phodopus, often kept as a pet or used in scientific research.
      The hamster stuffed his puffy cheeks with food.
2. 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).

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To secrete or store privately, as a hamster does with food in its cheek pouches.
   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