desert rat

1. (Animals) a jerboa, Jaculus orientalis, inhabiting the deserts of N Africa

2. (Military) informal Brit a soldier who served in North Africa with the British 7th Armoured Division in 1941–42

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Noun

desert rat - any of various leaping rodents of desert regions of North America and Mexico; largest members of the family Heteromyidae

Dipodomys phillipsii, kangaroo rat

pocket rat - any of various rodents with cheek pouches

Dipodomys, genus Dipodomys - kangaroo rats

Dipodomys ordi, Ord kangaroo rat - most widely distributed kangaroo rat: plains and mountain areas of central and western United States

Translations

aavikkojerboaavikkorotta

desert rat

n (Brit fig inf) → Wüstensoldat m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in periodicals archive ?

He also receives regular letters and photographs from Camilla, Duchess of Rothesay, whose father was a Desert Rat.

He's an old rat but we're proud of him! TRIBUTES TO WAR HERO ON 107th BIRTHDAY Jimmy celebrates with whisky and porridge

Why all the fuss, says honoured Desert Rat and Garter Homes, a charity that provides specialist care for veterans.

Why all the fuss, says honoured Desert Rat; Prized French medal award for Desert Rat

TRIBUTES have been paid to a Desert Rat hero who "rode into the war on a horse - and came home on a tank".

Funeral of Desert Rat who 'rode to war on a horse and returned in a tank'

ST?ONE OF THE LAST SURVIVING DESERT RATS REVEALS WWII HORRORS IN NORTH AFRICA AND HOW HE CAME CLOSE TO SEEING CHURCHILL Brum soldier Bob Brighton tells ALISON STACEY about his time as a Desert Rat and helping to fix General Monty's boots DING in the blistering heat of the desert, the sun beat down on the hundreds of men lining the route to Tripoli in Libya.

After battle we'd collect the bodies of our own men to give them a real burial

But, then, life as a desert rat isn't all that had.

Desert rat: what you see in the desert depends on how you look at it

ANSWERS: 1 The corgi; 2 Nine (not including the so-called 'Battle' Symphony); 3 The Cultural Revolution; 4 Sodium; 5 Drone; 6 Blackburn, West Lothian; 7 Desert rat; 8 A county where a lord or earl exercised many royal powers; 9 Finland; 10 George Washington.

Quiz of the Day

FORMER Desert Rat and chauffeur to the Cardiff Lord Mayor Richard Ferguson has died aged 92.

'Designs would have made Brunel proud'

DESERT RAT 1940-43: BRITISH AND COMMONWEALTH TROOPS IN NORTH AFRICA provides a fine survey of the British troops who actively fought Italy and Germany on land: the only British forces to endure intense land combat.

Desert Rat 1940-43

My dad, he was a desert rat My mum was in munitions They married as war ended And together they have stayed.

SIXTYFOURYEARSTOGETHER

Here he follows the British Eighth Army and the Seventh Armoured Division, which took the jerboa, or desert rat, as an emblem.

Churchill's Desert Rats in North Africa, Burma, Sicily and Italy

Iraqi officials continue to make noises about moving the Mojahedin-e Khalq from Camp Ashraf to a desert rat hole far from the Iranian border.

Report from camp Ashraf

The former Desert Rat said: "There were three of them, all about 6ft tall and well built.