English

Noun

wishtonwish ‎(plural wishtonwishes)

1. (US, obsolete, except perhaps in dialects) The prairie dog.
   • 1812 April, Pike's Expedition, in The General Repository and Review, volume 1, page 398:

     On the twenty fourth of October, while on a short excursion from this place, Lt. Pike and Dr. Robertson, (a gentleman who accompanied the expedition,) killed some prairie squirrels, or wishtonwishes, and nine rattle snakes, […]

   • 1937, James Thurber, Let Your Mind Alone, page 189:

     […] who, it turned out, devoted all his spending money to them, asked me if I had ever seen a "wishtonwish."

References

• wishtonwish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

1. ↑ 1910, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge, part 2, page 965