foxlet

English

Etymology

From fox +‎ -let.

Noun

foxlet (plural foxlets)

1. A young fox.

   Synonyms: fox cub, foxling

   • 1898, Henri Lachambre, Alexis Machuron, unknown translator, “The Erline Jarl”, in Andrée and His Balloon, Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co, →OCLC, page 143:

     The little fox will grow a big fox, / Provided God will grant him life; / But to release him in the meantime / I think would be foolish indeed. / Two foxes that were but foxlets, as yet, / Quite young little things, / Were captured by chance / By the good Doctor Grumberg / On the Isles of Spitzbergen.

   • 1941, Lew Sarett, “Fox-Heart”, in The Collected Poems of Lew Sarett, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, section XIII (Lumberjacks and Voyageurs), page 303:

     It flashed on me that I had come a month / Too late for trapping, that foxlets in the spring / May grow sharp teeth with the passing of a moon . . .

   • 2016, Mhairi Mackay, “Accident”, in Secrets and Confessions, Edinburgh: Scottish Book Trust, →ISBN, page 14:

     I remember reading while I was pregnant about emotions, and how I would become eloquently compassionate towards all living things, like the mother fox who ushers an orphaned bear cub to her breast with her other tiny foxlets.