foxlet

plural foxlets

1. A young fox.

   It flashed on me that I had come a month / Too late for trapping, that foxlets in the spring / May grow sharp teeth with the passing of a moon . . .

   1941, Lew Sarett, “Fox-Heart”, in The Collected Poems of Lew Sarett, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, section XIII (Lumberjacks and Voyageurs), page 303

   2 more examples

   The little fox will grow a big fox, / Provided God will grant him life; / But to release him in the meantime / I think would be foolish indeed. / Two foxes that were but foxlets, as yet, / Quite young little things, / Were captured by chance / By the good Doctor Grumberg / On the Isles of Spitzbergen.

   1898, Henri Lachambre, Alexis Machuron, unknown translator, “The Erline Jarl”, in Andrée and His Balloon, Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co, →OCLC, page 143

   I remember reading while I was pregnant about emotions, and how I would become eloquently compassionate towards all living things, like the mother fox who ushers an orphaned bear cub to her breast with her other tiny foxlets.

   2016, Mhairi Mackay, “Accident”, in Secrets and Confessions, Edinburgh: Scottish Book Trust, →ISBN, page 14

   Synonyms: fox cub, foxling