noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A member of one of several species of small, jumping, mouselike rodents of the subfamily Gerbillinae, native to Africa, India, and Southern Europe.
2. 2
   small Old World burrowing desert rodent with long soft pale fur and hind legs adapted for leaping wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   To rotate inside a monowheel or similar apparatus due to sudden acceleration or braking. intransitive
2. 2
   To insert a small animal (typically a gerbil, supposedly) into one's rectum (a sexual practice in urban myth). intransitive, slang

Synonyms

All synonyms

gerbille

Example

More examples

"Is Cookie a hamster or a gerbil?"

Etymology

From French gerbille, from Latin gerbo, from Arabic جَرْبُوع (jarbūʕ) or يَرْبُوع (yarbūʕ, “jerboa”). Doublet of jerboa.

Related phrases

Anderson's gerbilBoehm's gerbilBurton's gerbilCape short-eared gerbilCheesman's gerbilEmin's gerbilFlower's gerbilHarrington's gerbilHarwood's gerbilHoogstraal's gerbilIndian gerbilJames's gerbil

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.