muskrat

The word may simply describe the animal's musky odor combined with its rat-like appearance. Alternatively, it may come from an Algonquian word like the Abenaki 'moskwas,' which English speakers reshaped to sound like the familiar words 'musk' and 'rat.'

The facts don't indicate any shift in meaning over time — only uncertainty about whether the name was coined descriptively or borrowed and reshaped.

The name may be linked by folk etymology to the English words 'musk' and 'rat,' even if its true root lies in an Algonquian language like Abenaki.