civet

See also: civět

English

Etymology

From French civette, from Italian zibetto, from Medieval Latin zibethum, from Arabic زَبَاد (zabād).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈsɪ.vɪt/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Rhymes: -ɪvɪt

Noun

civet (countable and uncountable, plural civets)

Any of the small carnivorous catlike mammals encompassing certain species from the families Viverridae, Eupleridae, and Nandiniidae, native to tropical Africa and Asia.
Synonym: civet cat
(uncountable) The musky perfume produced by the animal; civetone.
- 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
  LEONATO. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.
  DON PEDRO. Nay, a' rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?
  CLAUDIO. That's as much as to say the sweet youth's in love.
- 1607, [attributed to Thomas Tomkis], Lingva: Or The Combat of the Tongue, and the Five Senses for Superiority. A Pleasant Comœdie., London: Printed by G[eorge] Eld, for Simon Waterson, →OCLC, act IV, scene iii:
  Your onely way to make a good pomander, is this. Take an ownce of the pureſt garden mould, clenſed and ſteeped ſeauen daies in change of motherleſſe roſe water, then take the beſt Labdanum, Benioine, both Storaxes, amber greece, and Ciuet, and muſke, incorporate them together, and work them into what form you pleaſe; this, if your breath bee not to valiant, will make you ſmell as ſweete as my Ladies dogge.
- 2023 May 6, Simon Schama, “Magic and Modernity”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
  […] even if modest gestures of modernisation have slimmed down the ceremony, the chrism of unction is no longer perfumed with animal effluents—ambergris, musk and civet—and Andrew Lloyd Webber added to Handel and Elgar?
(US regional) A spotted skunk.
- 1906, A. R. Harding, editor, A Book of Instruction Giving Many Methods of Trapping—A Valuable Book for Trappers, page 41:
  I believe other animals are the same; but skunk and civet are not so particular what they eat; anything half decomposed or rotten will answer.
- 2008, Charles A. Long, The Wild Mammals of Wisconsin, Pensoft, page 410:
  When inquiring of people, ask about "civets", for spotted skunks are often mistakenly known as civets.
- 2014, Dale E. Vander Linden, Eight Fine Sons—and Dale, page 68:
  We ran trap lines on the way to school. Never caught much but skunk, civet and muskrats.
(US regional) A ringtail (Bassariscus astutus).
- 1928, “Society Proceedings”, in The Journal of Parasitology‎^[1], volume 14, number 3, page 197:
  The civet, Bassariscus astutus flavus, a new host for Uncinaria lotoris.— Several specimens of this hookworm, described by Schwartz (1925) from Procyon lotor, were found in the small intestine of the civet or ring-tailed cat at College Station, Texas, by the writer December 15, 1925.
- 1991, Diana Hadley, Peter Warshall, Don Bufkin, Environmental Change in Aravaipa, 1870–1970: An Ethnoecological Survey, Arizona State Office of the Bureau of Land Management, page 273:
  Raccoon, ringtail (civet), coyotes, badgers, bobcat, fox, and skunk were all hunted or trapped for furs throughout the settled portions of the Aravaipa area.