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A gerbil is a small furry animal — a rodent — with a tail and long back legs. People often keep gerbils as pets. They come from dry country; they like to dig, they can hop a little, and they are usually and more “desert” looking than a hamster. The word came into English from French, and further back from Arabic; jerboa is a of the same name. A jerboa is a wild jumping cousin, not the pet in the cage. In ordinary talk gerbil stays on the animal; it is not a formal or scientific-only word, just a pet-shop and classroom word.
沙鼠（寵物店用語；跳鼠是 jerboa，不是同一種）
組成From French gerbille, from Latin gerbo, from Arabic جربوع or يربوع (a jerboa). Doublet of jerboa.
同家族的字
- jerboasame Arabic name; gerbil and jerboa are doublets
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
gerbilnoun/ˈd͡ʒɝbl̩/
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A member of one of several species of small, jumping, mouselike rodents of the subfamily Gerbillinae, native to Africa, India, and Southern Europe.
gerbilverb/ˈd͡ʒɝbl̩/
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To rotate inside a monowheel or similar apparatus due to sudden acceleration or braking.
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slangTo insert a small animal (typically a gerbil, supposedly) into one's rectum (a sexual practice in urban myth).
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。