Etymology Borrowed from German Hamster (see for etymology). Displaced earlier term German rat.
1
Any of various Old World rodent species belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae.
The hamster stuffed his puffy cheeks with food.
Since the pregnancy interceptive agents or the menses regulators may also influence the development of either trophoblasts or the maternal cells (epithelial and stromal) at the embryo attachment site, another in vitro assay method using using trophoblast cells of hamster and mouse isolated from a preplacental organelle, the ectoplacental cone, has been developed.2013, George deStevens, Ernst Jucker, V. Zingel, Progress in Drug Research, page 166:
2
In particular, a rodent of the species Mesocricetus auratus (the golden hamster) or of a species of the genera Cricetiscus and Phodopus (the dwarf hamsters), often kept as a pet or used in scientific research.
3
Any of various other rodents of similar appearance, such as the maned hamster or crested hamster, Lophiomys imhausi, mouse-like hamsters of genus Calomyscus, and the white-tailed rat (Mystromys albicaudatus).
Etymology Borrowed from German Hamster (see for etymology). Displaced earlier term German rat.
1
Ambitransitive To secrete or store privately, as a hamster does with food in its cheek pouches.
Probably the city government knew that without that hamstering half the city would starve and they somehow got the police to lay off. It was in the little stinky one-horse towns that you had all the trouble.1974, Phyllis Knight, Rolf Knight, A Very Ordinary Life, page 43:
[…] in his bedroom in neat stacks — he always hamstered them away upstairs as soon as the morning was done. This year the gifts sat ignored […]2004, Sharon L. Pywell, What Happened to Henry, page 50:
1 more example
[…] eastern children frequently “hamstered,” smuggled, and begged across the boundary, especially after currency reform […]2014, Edith Sheffer, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain: