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Vole

//vəʊl// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.
  2. 2
    A deal in a card game, écarté, that draws all the tricks. archaic

    "Ladies, I'll venture for the vole."

  3. 3
    any of various small mouselike rodents of the family Cricetidae (especially of genus Microtus) having a stout short-tailed body and inconspicuous ears and inhabiting fields or meadows wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To win all the tricks by a vole. archaic, intransitive

    "no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising Courtier will have toll."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Norn vollj, from Old Norse vǫllr (“field”), from Proto-Germanic *walþuz (“forest”). The Orkney dialectal term vole mouse, lit. “field mouse”, was introduced to general English by George Barry in 1805; John Fleming in 1828 was first to refer to the creature by the epithet vole alone. Displaced earlier names for these species which also classified them as mice, e.g. short-tailed field mouse.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French vole.

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French vole.

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