Hamster: Cheek Pouches and an Endless Wheel
A hamster is a small rodent kept as a pet. Its cheek pouches and its wheel have both entered the language as images.
A hamster is a small burrowing rodent, kept worldwide as a pet. Two features have escaped into everyday English: the cheek pouches, which can carry a startling volume of food, and the wheel, which gave us *hamster wheel* for any effort that produces motion without progress. Nearly all golden hamsters kept as pets descend from one wild litter collected in Syria in 1930.
- A small rodent with cheek pouches. *A Syrian hamster.*
- Hamster wheel — pointless repetitive effort. *Stuck on the hamster wheel.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | hamster | A tame hamster. |
| Plural | hamsters | Two hamsters. |
| Compound | hamster wheel | On the hamster wheel. |
| Related | gerbil | A pet gerbil. |
| Related | rodent | A small rodent. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The hamster filled both pouches with seed.Pouches reach back to the shoulders.
- Hamsters are nocturnal, which surprises new owners.They are most active at night.
- The job felt like a hamster wheel.Effort without progress.
Small pet rodents
- Syrian hamster — the largest and most common, solitary
- Dwarf hamster — smaller, sometimes kept in pairs
- Gerbil — long tailed, active by day
- Guinea pig — larger, highly social
- Mouse and rat — social, and rats are unusually trainable
From German *Hamster*, from an older Germanic word probably borrowed from a Slavic source meaning to hoard. The name says what the animal does with its pouches.
Why should Syrian hamsters live alone?
Because they are solitary in the wild and will fight if housed together as adults.
Where does *hamster wheel* come from?
From the exercise wheel in a cage: the animal runs hard and stays exactly where it was.