veelvraat

Dutch

Etymology

1710; compound of veel (“much”) +‎ vraat (“gobbling, eating gluttonously”), calque of German Vielfraß or German Low German Veelfraat. The term originally meant simply ‘glutton’ in German, but was applied to the hyena in pre-modern times. In the 15th century, Old Norwegian fjellfross (“wolverine”, literally “mountain cat”) was borrowed into Middle Low German by Hanseatic fur traders as villevrās and folk-etymologically blended with the existing word for ‘glutton’, possibly influenced by Finnish ahma (“glutton; wolverine”), giving veelvratz (Reinke de Vos, 1498), vēlevrās, vēlevrāt. The meaning ‘wolverine’ was initially the only one received into Dutch, although by 1849 the word had acquired the meaning ‘glutton’.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈveːl.vraːt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: veel‧vraat

Noun

veelvraat m (plural veelvraten, diminutive veelvraatje n)

1. glutton

   Synonyms: slokop, vraat

2. wolverine, Gulo gulo

Hypernyms

• (wolverine): marterachtige