lemming

See also: lèmming and Lemming

English

Wikispecies

Etymology

From Danish and Norwegian lemming, from Old Norse lómundr, læmingi, læmingr (“lemming”), perhaps from Sami luomek. Sense 2 derives from a longstanding myth that they exhibit so much herd mentality that populations jump off cliffs to their deaths together.

A lemming.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /lɛm.ɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛmɪŋ

Noun

lemming (plural lemmings)

1. A small Arctic and Subarctic rodent from any of six genera of similar rodents.
   • 1876, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Geographical Distribution of Animals, chapter 2, page 18:

     The well-known lemmings, in severe winters, at long intervals, move down from the mountains of Scandinavia in immense numbers, crossing lakes and rivers, eating their way through haystacks, and surmounting every obstacle till they reach the sea, whence very few return.

2. (figuratively) Any member of a group given to conformity or groupthink, especially a group poised to follow a leader off a cliff.
   • 2004, Ilse Hobbs, Jan Havenga, A Practical Guide to Strategy, →ISBN, page 127:

     Lemmings are strongly cohesive, but could be, in organisational terms, highly destructive for the business.

   • 2014, M.P. Fedunkiw, A Degree of Futility‎^[1], page 61:

     Like a lemming, I followed the crowd, got to the right line and was concentrating hard when queried by the customs officer.

Synonyms

• sable mouse

Derived terms

• bog lemmings (Synaptomys spp.)
• collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx spp.)
• northern bog lemming
• steppe lemmings (Lagurus lagurus)
• true lemmings (Lemmus spp.)
• wood lemmings (Myopus schisticolor)
• yellow steppe lemmings (Eolagurus spp.)
• Eurolemming
• Norway lemming

Translations

rodent

• Bulgarian: леминг m (leming)
• Catalan: lèmming m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 旅鼠 (zh) (lǚshǔ)

• Chukchi: гувчеԓкаԓгын (guvčeḷkaḷgyn)
• Czech: lumík (cs) m
• Danish: lemming c
• Dutch: lemming (nl) m
• Esperanto: lemo
• Estonian: lemming (et)
• Faroese: læmingi m
• Finnish: sopuli (fi)
• French: lemming (fr) m
• Georgian: ლემინგები (lemingebi)
• German: Lemming (de) m
• Greenlandic: avinngaq, maajooq, narlumukaaq
• Hawaiian: ʻawinaka
• Hebrew: לֵמוּס m (lémus)
• Icelandic: læmingi m
• Ido: lemingo (io)
• Inuktitut: ᐊᕕᙵᖅ (afinngaq)
• Japanese: レミング (remingu), 旅鼠 (タビネズミ, tabinezumi)
• Kazakh: лемминг (lemmiñ)
• Mari:

  Eastern Mari: лемминг (ĺemming)

• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: хөвхөлжин (xövxölžin)

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: lemen (no) n

  Nynorsk: lemen n

• Old Norse: lómundr
• Polish: leming (pl) m
• Portuguese: lêmingue (pt) m, lémingue m
• Romanian: leming (ro) m
• Russian: ле́мминг (ru) m (lémming), пестру́шка (ru) f (pestrúška)
• Slovene: léming m
• Southern Sami: sluemege, luemege
• Spanish: lemming m
• Swedish: lämmel (sv) c
• Tibetan: འགྲུལ་བྱི། ('grul byi)

member of a group given to conformity or groupthink

• Danish: lemming c
• Finnish: laumasielu, sopuli (fi)
• French: mouton de Panurge (fr) m
• Polish: leming (pl) m, wyznawca (pl) m

Dutch

Etymology

From Danish and Norwegian lemming, from Old Norse lómundr, læmingi, læmingr (“lemming”), perhaps from Sami luomek.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

lemming m (plural lemmingen or lemmings, diminutive lemminkje n)

1. lemming (rodent)

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

• glimmen

French

Etymology

From Danish and Norwegian lemming, from Old Norse lómundr, læmingi, læmingr (“lemming”), perhaps from Sami luomek.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɛ.miŋ/ ~ /le.miŋ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

lemming m (plural lemmings)

1. lemming

Further reading

• “lemming”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English lemming.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlẽ.mĩ/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈlẽ.mĩ/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈle.mĩ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈle.min/

Noun

lemming m (plural lemmings)

1. Alternative form of lémingue

Spanish

Etymology

From Danish and Norwegian lemming, from Old Norse lómundr, læmingi, læmingr (“lemming”), perhaps from Sami luomek.

Noun

lemming m (plural lemmings)

1. lemming (rodent)