1A domesticated polecat kept as a pet or used, especially in Europe, for catching rabbits. It is typically albino or brown.

Mustela putorius furo, family Mustelidae; descended mainly from the European polecat

1. 1.1 A rare weasel-like animal (Mustela nigripes), found in grassland in the US.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The black-footed ferret, swift fox, mountain plover, ferruginous hawk, burrowing owl, and other species are dependent upon prairie dogs to varying degrees.
   • Genetic diversity in black-footed ferrets (M. nigripes) declined as populations were extirpated.
   • While domestic ferrets are common pets, black-footed ferrets, are one of North America's most endangered mammals.
   • These areas provide critical habitat for sage grouse, black-footed ferrets, swift foxes and black - tailed prairie dogs, whose plight NWF has brought to the forefront.
   • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the black-footed ferret as an endangered species.
   • Black-footed ferrets evolved with prairie dogs in this once-vast but now beleaguered landscape.
   • The black-footed ferret has come a long way since the late 1970s, when many people feared that it was extinct.
   • The wild black-footed ferret, indigenous to North America, is an endangered species.
   • Protecting endangered species, such as rare ferrets from birds of prey is another, wrote the researchers.
   • The group has worked on a number of projects including forensic searches for illegally killed wolves in Montana and presence-detection of black footed ferrets in Montana and South Dakota.
   • Scientists estimate the ferrets once occupied prairie dog towns spread between northern Mexico and southern Canada and west from the Rocky Mountains into the Great Plains.
   • In one case, at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, plague wiped out both prairie dogs and ferrets completely.
   • Saw the article about saving black-footed ferrets in Mexico [‘New Chance for Ferrets’]?

1no object (of a person) hunt with ferrets, typically for rabbits.

1. 1.1 Clear (a hole or area of ground) of rabbits with ferrets.
   用雪貂把兔子从（洞中或某处）赶出
   Example sentencesExamples

   • We ferreted several warrens, and thus several breeding groups, in each capture area.
   • I just ferreted this hole as I wanted to find out where all the bolt holes were before I gassed it, and as I had the nets in my pocket I thought ...why not!
2. 1.2with adverbial of place Look around in a place or container in search of something.
   （翻箱倒柜地）寻找，搜寻
   he went to the desk and ferreted around

   他蹒跚地走到书桌前，翻箱倒柜地到处找了起来。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Goldman ferrets through the dirty laundry of the movie business and examines the stains (including his own) with forensic detail.
   • What we don't need is a witch hunt against the American people, ferreting through their private lives or detaining them because of their ethnicity.
   • Two grown adults ferreting among the shrubbery, shaking various boxes of favourite food and calling daft pet names into the darkness… to no avail.
   • But one night, a woolly-hatted youth ferreted around in the skip and extracted the ancient rucksack.
   • Katherine and Kyla ferreted around the racks looking for good clothes.
   • This is not the way search engines work right now, where they generally search for phrases or words in the entire content of the pages they can see, ferreting around in more of a rummage than a skilled and honed inquiry.
   • I had ferreted around my closet for a CD that seemed mildly interesting to me, since most of my music was on my laptop, and I was disgusted with the failed search.
   • When the food supplies dwindled, they ferreted around for root vegetables, insects and anything else that can be eaten.
   • I looked down at the little ashtray on his gold coloured hostess trolley, two lonely pound coins looked back up at me, so i ferreted around in my pocket for something smaller.
   • He was ferreting around for his cash when one of them allegedly spotted a bobby on patrol, and as he made himself look inconspicuous they swapped the laptop case for another.
   • There's the Smoking Gun, which ferrets around to find court documents and police mugshots relating to major, usually celebrity-related cases.
   • Bourne ferrets ceaselessly away through all this, uncloseting all sorts of complex CIA skeletons that would - and did - take a thick Robert Ludlum novel to detail.
   • They had a cleaning lady come and clean most of the time, and Sara was always ferreting around, trying to make the house look like an interior designing magazine, which again made me mad.

   Synonyms

   rummage, search about, scrabble around, feel around, grope around, forage around, fish about, fish around, poke about, poke around, scratch about, scratch around, delve, dig, hunt
3. 1.3ferret something outwith object Search tenaciously for and find something.
   搜出（或查获）某物
   she had the ability to ferret out the facts

   她有能耐把事情搞个水落石出。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Media organizations, having decided that Levy's disappearance is a major story, should explore every lead to ferret out the truth.
   • The media generally ignore them - and only the most motivated consumers ferret out the facts about what ought to be as natural as a walk in the garden.
   • Directors always see something in you that you have to kind of ferret out, in a way.
   • The team ferreting out information on Grace Kelly is, in the words of one Enquirer reporter, the ‘best investigative team of journalists anybody had seen for a century.’
   • But the more answers the couple have ferreted out, the more questions are raised.
   • Usually, the prices it ferrets out are cheaper than if you book through the hotel itself.
   • As if any time spent by reporters ferreting out the truth - and by Congress overseeing - would otherwise be spent tossing sandbags on the levee, disinfecting the Superdome, or driving evacuees to Houston.
   • An avalanche forecaster ferrets out a dangerous weakness in the snowpack with the shovel shear test.
   • If there's a story that has any connection with the Super Bowl, it will be ferreted out by 3,000 newspaper, radio and TV people.
   • And everybody knows that they do it, and you try to ferret it out, because we're supposed to try to find things based upon the truth.
   • So the issues don't get driven by the elected officials inside the institution, and I think that's one of the reasons that the press doesn't necessarily ferret them out.
   • The actual story is fairly clichéd, and the final twist can be easily ferreted out by observant viewers, but the fun in The Ghost is in getting there.
   • But Sid wasn't really the type that offered up information easily, preferring to have his barmates ferret it out of him.
   • Even if you don't like the story, you have to respect his sheer investigative skill in ferreting it out.
   • The good folks at the American Physical Society have noticed this, and have even initiated a contest to help ferret out the reason for the equation's appearance.
   • Mr Smith then visited Saudi Arabia twice trying to ferret the truth out of the authorities.
   • On behalf of the ordinary reader, you feel he will ferret out the truth if anyone can.
   • As Abberline ferrets out evidence, he discovers a method to the murderer's madness, and far-reaching implications that could topple Queen Victoria's throne.
   • Rather than analyse the dust of previous centuries, Ferriter ferrets out the more obvious origins of the world we inhabit.
   • Each day he and his small team ferret out the wholesale price of produce, a difficult task, given that transactions between producers and wholesalers aren't disclosed and prices aren't displayed.

   Synonyms

   unearth, uncover, discover, detect, search out, elicit, bring to light, bring into the open, reveal, get at, run to earth, track down, turn up, dig up, dig out, root out, hunt out, fish out, nose out, sniff out