dormouse

Pronunciation: /ˈdɔɹ.maʊs/

The English word “dormouse” has 4 meanings listed here.

noun

Any of several species of small, mostly European rodents of the family Gliridae.
Glis glis (edible dormouse).
Muscardinus avellanarius (hazel dormouse).
A person who sleeps a great deal, or who falls asleep readily (by analogy with the sound hibernation of the dormouse).

Etymology

From Middle English dormowse, of uncertain origin. Possibly from a dialectal *dor-, from Old Norse dár (“benumbed”) + mous (“mouse”). More at doze, mouse. The word is sometimes conjectured to come from an Anglo-Norman derivative of Old French dormir (“to sleep”) (as *dormouse (“tending to be dormant”), with second element mistaken for mouse), but no such Anglo-Norman term is known to have existed.

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