I've been having to burn time during some fevers in recent weeks (and am
behind on some work as a result) and needing to save serious stuff for
btwn time, so during one I began to check what I'd long assumed was right
during a fever.  This is only recreation and not be taken as anything
approaching a serious attempt at scholarship.
 
It seems that except for mustela clearly meaning "mouse spear" from mus
and telus the rest of the taxonomic names used for ferrets could have
more than one possible meaning.
 
For example, furs means thief, but furo actually refers to rage, so the
root of furo in the name could reflect the same base a furor instead of
furtive.
 
Putorius might be the same way and seems to (maybe?) reflect
"putEre"according to one source -- but I am not having luck on that
search so maybe that source is wrong or partly wrong or just confusing
me.  In that case, if it is reliable, both meanings are said to go back
to rotten, but is the use referring to the smell or to the documented
tendency of stashed ferret kills going putrid in undesired places?
Either is possible, but this might be a false lead.  The most
straightforward Latin dictionary I found for my personal level of
ignorance (to which I readily confess) is
http://www.24hourlatin.com/cgi-bin/latindict.pl which has "puteo" for
stink, "putator, is" for pruner or cutter, "putealis, e" meaning from
a well, "putris, e" for rotten, and putus for unadulterated.  I used
several such dictionaries.
 
So, anyway, I figured that those with open minds might find this
intriguing and I sincerely hope that there is an actual Classical
Languages professor here or a Biological History professor who works
on the time of Linnaeas and may be able to narrow things down for
probability of application because it needs that specific expert touch
but has only reflected what the rest of us have found through the years.
It may even be that Linnaeas had a poetic twist to him and purposely
used the words for maximal application based on what he knew of the
critters at that time.
 
Now you know one way I waste time having fun when I have a sizzling
head and don't trust myself to do something serious: I play with
websites and questions...
[Posted in FML issue 4604]