comadreja

From comadre (“midwife; godmother”) +‎ -eja (diminutive suffix), said to be after its sinuous and nimble (and therefore “feminine”) figure. Compare equivalents in other Romance languages (Italian donnola, Portuguese doninha, Galician doniña, Romanian nevăstuică) but not only (Greek νυφίτσα (nyfítsa), Danish brud, Arabic اِبْن عِرْس (ibn ʕirs)).

• IPA^(key): /komaˈdɾexa/ [ko.maˈð̞ɾe.xa]

• Audio (Spain):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -exa
• Syllabification: co‧ma‧dre‧ja

comadreja f (plural comadrejas)

1. weasel (Mustela nivalis)

   Synonyms: comadreja común, comadreja menor

2. weasel, marten (a mammal of the genus Mustela)
3. weasel (mammal unrelated to the genus Mustela)

   Hyponym: comadreja rayada africana (“African striped weasel”)

4. (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) opossum, possum (especially the white-eared opossum Didelphis Albiventris)

   Synonyms: zarigüeya, comadreja overa

• “comadreja”, in Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy, 2023 November 28
•   comadreja on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es