Word.ws English Dictionary

squirrel away

squirrel away verb: to stash or hide; to hoard, collect, save, or accumulate; to create a reserve, stash, or hoard of some supply.

Verb

squirrel away (third-person singular simple present squirrels away, present participle (US) squirreling away or (UK) squirrelling away, simple past and past participle (US) squirreled away or (UK) squirrelled away)

  1. (informal, transitive) To stash or hide; to hoard, collect, save, or accumulate; to create a reserve, stash, or hoard of some supply.
    • He had bits of string, cans of nails and lots of other useful tidbits squirreled away throughout his garage.
    Synonyms:
    accumulate

Synonyms of squirrel away

Forms of squirrel away

third-person singular presentsquirrels away
present participle USsquirreling away
present participle UKsquirrelling away
past participle USsquirreled away
past USsquirreled away
past participle UKsquirrelled away
past UKsquirrelled away

Origin of squirrel away

Suggesting the way that squirrels hide nuts in a cache.

Questions about squirrel away

What does squirrel away mean?
Squirrel away means to stash or hide; to hoard, collect, save, or accumulate; to create a reserve, stash, or hoard of some supply.
What part of speech is squirrel away?
Squirrel away is a verb.
What is the past tense of squirrel away?
The past tense of squirrel away is squirreled away.

Words near squirrel away in the dictionary

  1. squirmy
  2. squirr
  3. squirred
  4. squirrel
  5. squirrel around
  6. squirrel away
  7. squirrel cage
  8. squirrel cages
  9. squirrel corn
  10. squirrel fish
  11. squirrel friend

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: squirrel away (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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