civet

plural civets

1. countableuncountableAny of the small carnivorous catlike mammals encompassing certain species from the families Viverridae, Eupleridae, and Nandiniidae, native to tropical Africa and Asia.

   Synonyms: civet cat

2. uncountableThe musky perfume produced by the animal; civetone.

   LEONATO. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard. DON PEDRO. Nay, a' rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that? CLAUDIO. That's as much as to say the sweet youth's in love.

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   2 more examples

   Your onely way to make a good pomander, is this. Take an ownce of the pureſt garden mould, clenſed and ſteeped ſeauen daies in change of motherleſſe roſe water, then take the beſt Labdanum, Benioine, both Storaxes, amber greece, and Ciuet, and muſke, incorporate them together, and work them into what form you pleaſe; this, if your breath bee not to valiant, will make you ſmell as ſweete as my Ladies dogge.

   1607, [attributed to Thomas Tomkis], Lingva: Or The Combat of the Tongue, and the Five Senses for Superiority. A Pleasant Comœdie., London: Printed by G[eorge] Eld, for Simon Waterson, →OCLC, act IV, scene iii

   […]even if modest gestures of modernisation have slimmed down the ceremony, the chrism of unction is no longer perfumed with animal effluents—ambergris, musk and civet—and Andrew Lloyd Webber added to Handel and Elgar?

   2023 May 6, Simon Schama, “Magic and Modernity”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1

3. UScountableregionaluncountableA spotted skunk.

   We ran trap lines on the way to school. Never caught much but skunk, civet and muskrats.

   2014, Dale E. Vander Linden, Eight Fine Sons—and Dale, page 68

   2 more examples

   I believe other animals are the same; but skunk and civet are not so particular what they eat; anything half decomposed or rotten will answer.

   1906, A. R. Harding, editor, A Book of Instruction Giving Many Methods of Trapping—A Valuable Book for Trappers, page 41

   When inquiring of people, ask about "civets", for spotted skunks are often mistakenly known as civets.

   2008, Charles A. Long, The Wild Mammals of Wisconsin, Pensoft, page 410

4. UScountableregionaluncountableA ringtail (Bassariscus astutus).

   Raccoon, ringtail (civet), coyotes, badgers, bobcat, fox, and skunk were all hunted or trapped for furs throughout the settled portions of the Aravaipa area.

   1991, Diana Hadley, Peter Warshall, Don Bufkin, Environmental Change in Aravaipa, 1870–1970: An Ethnoecological Survey, Arizona State Office of the Bureau of Land Management, page 273

   1 more example

   The civet, Bassariscus astutus flavus, a new host for Uncinaria lotoris.— Several specimens of this hookworm, described by Schwartz (1925) from Procyon lotor, were found in the small intestine of the civet or ring-tailed cat at College Station, Texas, by the writer December 15, 1925.

   1928, “Society Proceedings”, in The Journal of Parasitology, volume 14, number 3, page 197