DCHP-2

woodchuck † < Algonk. See note DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• n.

  a large burrowing rodent, Marmota monax, common in eastern and central Canada.

  See also: fisher  groundhog (def. 1)  wejack  woodshock  

  • This word appears to have been derived by folk etymology from earlier woodshock, q.v., itself a folk etymology meaning fisher, q.v., from an Algonkian word of similar meaning, as Cree o(t)chāk, which also came into English as wejack, q.v. At some time in the eighteenth century the term woodshock appears to have been transferred from the fisher to the groundhog, in which sense the alteration woodchuck has become generalized.

  • 1820  (1838)  One of the men brought in an animal . . . called a wood-chuck, or ground-hog, about the size of a Chinese pig half grown and resembling a guinea pig in shape and species.
  • 1958  While digging, he came upon an animal's burrow, and following it to the end, we found a groundhog, or woodchuck.