Also 7 chinchille. [Sp.; app. dim. of chinche bug (= OF. cincele, chincele); perh. from an erroneous notion that the animal had a fetid smell, or in contradistinction from a larger beast that had.] A genus of small rodent animals peculiar to South America. Chinchilla lanigera, a native of Peru and Chili, supplies the fine soft greyish chinchilla fur of commerce.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Ind., IV. xxxviii. 313–4 The Chinchilles is an other kind of small beasts, like squirrels, they have a woonderfull smoothe and soft skinne.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea, 157. Hee is gray; his skinne is the most delicate, soft, and curious furre that I have seene…. They call this beast chinchilla.
1824. Schmidtmeyer, in Penny Cycl., VII. 86/2. The Chinchilla is a woolly field-mouse, which lives underground, and chiefly feeds on wild onions.
1852. Sir W. Parish, Buenos Ayres, III. xviii. 310. The beautiful little chinchilla, thousands of dozens of the skins of which are yearly collected … for exportation to Europe.
b. Short for chinchilla fur.
1824. Schmidtmeyer, in Penny Cycl., VII. 86/2. That which comes from Upper Peru is rougher and larger than the Chinchilla of Chile, but not always so beautiful in its colour.
1882. in Draper’s Dict., s.v.
c. attrib.
1837. New Monthly Mag., LI. 251. She also wore a chinchilly tippet.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 75. Chinchilla fur is greatly admired for winter clothing.
2. A cloth with a long nap gathered in little tufts, in imitation of this fur.
