Noun: flittermouse
| Singular | flittermouse |
| Plural | flittermice |
Sample Sentences
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I thank thee, gentle flittermouse, for these so pleasant memories. Have you ever caught and examined a flittermouse? [1891, Conway Lloyd Morgan, Animal sketches:]
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1894, Philip Stewart Robinson, Birds of the Wave and Woodland, Electronic Edition, unnumbered page,
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The bats wheel overhead, their soft wings crumpling as they turn their somersaults, but never a voice in the air, save sharp needle-points of sound, as flittermouse calls to flittermouse.
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Now while they rested, a flittermouse flew forth from the Witchland booths and went widdershins round the wrastling ground and so returned silently whence she came. [1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 22:]
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They don't bump into folk, blind people don't. They're like flittermice. You never saw two flittermice bump into each other. [1969, Rayner Heppenstall, The Shearers, page 183:]
Nouns inflected like flittermouse
painted bristly mouse,
rock mouse,
creepmouse,
dust mouse,
reermouse,
bark louse,
greater big-footed mouse,
hopping mouse,
leaf louse,
Mitchell's hopping mouse,
chicken louse,
chewing louse,
mermouse,
flying mouse,
shrewmouse,
yellow-necked field mouse,
desert mouse,
flickermouse,
fish louse,
clit mouse, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From flitter + mouse (compare flickermouse, flindermouse), after Middle Dutch fleddermuys, vledermuys, vlermuys (Modern Dutch vleermuis), from vledderen, vlederen (“to flutter, float, hover”) + muys (“mouse”). Cognate with West Frisian flearmûs (“bat”), Middle Low German vledermūs (“bat”), German Fledermaus (“bat”), Swedish fladdermus (“bat”) and flädermus (“bat”). More at flitter, flutter, flatter, mouse. See: Dutch Nouns '
vleermuis', German Nouns '
Fledermaus', Swedish Nouns '
fladdermus'.