Hebrews tinshameth (Leviticus 11:30), probably signifies some species of lizard (rendered in R.V., "chameleon"). In Leviticus 11:18, Deuteronomy 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, "swan" (R.V., "horned owl").

The Hebrews holed (Leviticus 11:29), rendered "weasel," was probably the mole-rat. The true mole (Talpa Europoea) is not found in Palestine. The mole-rat (Spalax typhlus) "is twice the size of our mole, with no external eyes, and with only faint traces within of the rudimentary organ; no apparent ears, but, like the mole, with great internal organs of hearing; a strong, bare snout, and with large gnawing teeth; its colour a pale slate; its feet short, and provided with strong nails; its tail only rudimentary."

In Isaiah 2:20, this word is the rendering of two words _haphar peroth_, which are rendered by Gesenius "into the digging of rats", i.e., rats' holes. But these two Hebrew words ought probably to be combined into one (lahporperoth) and translated "to the moles", i.e., the rat-moles. This animal "lives in underground communities, making large subterranean chambers for its young and for storehouses, with many runs connected with them, and is decidedly partial to the loose debris among ruins and stone-heaps, where it can form its chambers with least trouble."

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) A spot; a stain; a mark which discolors or disfigures.

2. (n.) A spot, mark, or small permanent protuberance on the human body; esp., a spot which is dark-colored, from which commonly issue one or more hairs.

3. (n.) A mass of fleshy or other more or less solid matter generated in the uterus.

4. (n.) A mound or massive work formed of masonry or large stones, etc., laid in the sea, often extended either in a right line or an arc of a circle before a port which it serves to defend from the violence of the waves, thus protecting ships in a harbor; also, sometimes, the harbor itself.

5. (n.) Any insectivore of the family Talpidae. They have minute eyes and ears, soft fur, and very large and strong fore feet.

6. (n.) A plow of peculiar construction, for forming underground drains.

7. (v. t.) To form holes in, as a mole; to burrow; to excavate; as, to mole the earth.

8. (v. t.) To clear of molehills.