What does “мышка-норушка” mean in the Russian tale Teremok?

Бабушка Дима рассказывает сказку Теремок

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A1 Russian listening practice · Standard Russian · Picked for people who know a little

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мышка-норушка (myshka-norushka)
Russian fairy-tale nickname
“little burrow mouse,” a rhyming fairy-tale name

In the folk tale Теремок (“The Little Wooden House”) each animal has a rhyming double name. Мышка-норушка is the mouse who lives in a burrow (нора), лягушка-квакушка is the croaking frog (квакать, “to croak”), and зайчик-побегайчик is the running bunny. Every Russian child knows these names; they are as fixed as “Little Red Riding Hood.”

The rest of the cast follows the pattern: лисичка-сестричка (fox-little-sister) and волчок-серый бочок (little wolf, grey flank), until the bear arrives and squashes the house. The tale opens with the famous line стоит в поле теремок, and the clip’s narrator adds из трубы идёт дымок, “smoke rises from the chimney.”

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this A1 Russian listening practice video?

82.9%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Russian words
Most of the words in this video are common Russian words.

How common in Russian

74.4%
Top 1,000
82.9%
Top 2,000
88%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Russian

90.8%
Top 1,000
96.9%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than A1. Here is what they mean.

дымок
4×
Not in top 5,000
smoke detector
квакушка
4×
Not in top 5,000
frog
теремок
4×
Not in top 5,000
little tower
мышка
3×
Not in top 5,000
mouse
не низок и высок
1×
figurative: not very high or tall

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

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