How 20 Animals Got Their Names

The wordanimalderives from the Latinanima , stand for “ breathing space ” or “ soul . ” Thoughanimalfirst appeared in English in the late 14th century , it persist fair rare until the 1600s , when its use as a replacement for the older wordbeast — which once advert to any subsist puppet , but today has wilder , more ferocious connotations — won out . Beast , in turn , had been adopt into English from French sometime around the early 1200s . But just as it was eventually superseded byanimal , beastitself took over fromdeer , which was used moderately loosely in Old English to refer to any godforsaken animal .

Put another direction , the history of beast and beasts is all a routine confusing . luckily , the single name of unlike kinds ofanimalsaren’t nearly as mixed up . That ’s not to say they do n’t have their own stories to tell , though .

Penguin

No one is entirely sure why penguin are called “ penguins ” ( not help by the fact that theywere oncecalled “ arsefeet ” ) , but the in force possibility we have is thatpenguinis a corruption of the Welshpen gwyn , literally “ blanched head . ” The namepen gwynoriginally apply to thegreat auk , an tremendous flightless black - and - white seabird of the North Atlantic , which is nowextinct . It ’s presume that sailors to the South Atlantic either put off the flightless black - and - whitened seabirds they fancy there for great auk , or just used the same word for both creatures .

Albatross

This is a foreign one : In the 16th century , the Arabic Scripture for a sea bird of Jove , al - ghattas , was borrowed into Spanish and became the Spanish word for a pelican , alcatraz(which is where theisland with the prisongets its name).Alcatrazwas then adopt into English and becamealbatrossin the later 17th one C — but at each point in history , the word applied to completely different beast . An alternative theory claims thatalbatrossandalcatrazmight actually be unrelated , and rather , albatrosscould be derived from a Portuguese parole , alcatruz , for one of the troughs that carried the water around a waterwheel . But even if that ’s the case , the word still probably began life as another name for a pelican , with the bucket of the water wheel likely allude to the pelican ’s tremendous pouched bill .

Rhinoceros

Rhinocerosliterally means “ olfactory organ - tusk . ” Therhino – part is the same as in words likerhinoplasty , the aesculapian name for a nose job , while the – cerospart is the same root find in words liketriceratopsandkeratin , the knotty , fibrous protein that makes up our hair and nails and rhino horns .

Ostrich

The English wordostrichis a depravation of the Latinavis struthio — avismeaning “ bird ” andstruthiobeing the Latin Son for theostrichitself . In turn , struthiocomes from the Grecian name for the ostrich , strouthos meagle , whichliterally means“big sparrow . ”

Hippopotamus

Hippopotamusliterally mean “ river horse ” in Greek . It might not front much like ahorse , but it certainly lives in river — and countenance ’s be honest , ahippolook more like a cavalry than an Struthio camelus look like a dunnock .

Raccoon

Raccoonis derived from an Algonquin word that means “ he itch with his custody . ” Before that was adopted into English , raccoonswere known as “ wash - bears ” ( and still are in several other speech communication , let in Dutch and German ) , which refers to their perceived drug abuse of lap their food before eat on it .

Moose

Moose , too , is call up to be an Algonquin word , think “ he denude it off , ” a reference work to the creature ’s fondness for tearing barque off trees .

Tiger

Our wordtigergoes all the way back to Ancient Greek , but the Greeks had borrowed the word from Asia , and it ’s a whodunit where the Logos really develop . One possibility is that it comes fromtighri , a Scripture from Avestan ( an ancient Persian speech communication ) that means “ arrow ” or “ knifelike objective , ” but that ’s only hypothesis . Speaking of bigcats …

Leopard

bewilderingly , leopardliterally mean “ social lion - panther ” or “ Panthera leo - leopard . ” Variations of the wordpardhave been used to mean “ Panthera pardus ” or “ panther ” since the daytime of Ancient Greek , whileleonwas the Greek , and eventually Latin , Book for a lion . The wordlionitself , meanwhile , is so old that its origin plausibly lie in in the impossibly ancient languages from which Egyptian hieroglyphic derived . Another confusing great hombre name is …

Cheetah

It derives fromchita , which is the Hindi word for “ leopard ” and in all probability hail from aSanskrit wordliterally mean “ blot . ”

Python

In Grecian mythology , Python was an tremendous dragon - like serpent that was slain by the legendary hero Apollo . Apollo leave alone the ophidian ’s corpse to rot in the estrus of the sunlight , and the web site of its last eventually became the site of the oracle of Delphi ( known asPytho , to the ancient Greeks ) . at last , the namepythonitself descend from a Grecian word literally imply “ to moulder . ”

Anaconda

Theanaconda ’s name is a lot harder to explicate . Although Eunectes murinus are only receive in South America , it ’s probable that the name was brought there from elsewhere . One likely possibility claims that it once relate to an tremendous snake of Southeast Asia that was known by a Tamil name , anaikkonda , literally meaning “ having kill an elephant . ”

Hyena

The namehyenatraces back to the Greek word for apig or a boar , hys , which patently refers to the burred hairs on the animal ’s back .

Walrus

Walruswas adopt into English in the 18th C from Dutch , but it may have its origins in the Old Norse wordrosmhvalr , which come from another name for walrus , Samuel F. B. Morse . Before then , walruses were have sex as sea - elephants , sea - oxen , sea - cows , and even sea - horses .

Panda

Pandawas borrowed into English in the early 1800s , when it originally bear on exclusively to what we ’d now call ared Ailuropoda melanoleuca ; in quotation to the giant black - and - white coon bear , the word only dates back to the rootage of the 20th century , when the brute was erroneously thought to be relate to the red red panda . Either way , pandais thought to come from a Nepalese word of honor , Nigálya - pónya , that mightmeansomething like “ cane - eat on cat - bear . ”

Octopus

Octopusmeans “ eight - footed ” and not , despite what many mass think , “ eight - arm ” or “ eight - legged . ” Also perverse to democratic belief , the plural ofoctopusisn’toctopi . It would be ifoctopuswere a Romance word ( in which vitrine its plural form would follow the same rule as words likefungiandalumni ) , butoctopusis derived from Ancient Greek roots . So to be perfectly , pedantically right , the plural ofoctopusshould beoctopodes — but why perplex things ? Feel free just to call more than oneoctopusa group ofoctopuses .

Tortoise

No one is all certain whytortoisesare called “ tortoise , ” although it ’s fair to say that none of the theories we have to select from is particularly flattering . On one deal , tortoisemight be a differential of a Latin parole , tartaruchus , meaning “ of the Scheol . ” On the other hand , it might follow from the Latintortus , meaning “ misrepresented ” ( which is also where the adjectivetortuousderives from ) . The actual Latin name for the tortoise , genus Testudo , was much simpler , however : It just think “ crush . ”

Meerkat

The namemeerkatwas borrowed into English from Afrikaans , the Dutch - origin words speak in South Africa . In its aboriginal Dutch however , meerkatis another name for the guenon , a character of monkey found in sub - Saharan Africa . How did the two language become confused ? No one knows .

Kangaroo

There ’s an old common people etymology that claimskangaroomeans “ I do n’t cognise . ” concord to the fib , on his comer in Australia , Captain Cookasked an Aboriginal Australian what thebizarre - look creaturesbounding around in the distance were . He replied , in his aboriginal linguistic process , “ I do n’t know”—which , to Captain Cook , sound something like “ kangaroo . ” It ’s a neat history , but likely an apocryphal one , not least because the hazard of a Aboriginal Australian not knowing what a kangaroo was are middling slight . rather , it ’s likelykangaroolikely derive from a local Guugu Yimidhirr word of honor , perhaps simply meaning “ large animal . ”

Platypus

And last , staying in Australia , the duck - billedplatypus ’s name literally means “ flat - footed . ” Bonus fact : Because of its bizarre visual aspect , theplatypuswas also once know as the duck - mole .