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General knowledge Β· Words & language

Animal etymologies

From every period of English

Etymology β€” where the beasts got their names

English animal names are a museum of borrowing and misunderstanding. Some are literal descriptions in another language: the hippopotamus is a river horse, the aardvark an earth pig, the orangutan a man of the forest. Some are mistakes that stuck, like the alligator, which is Spanish for "the lizard" with the article still attached. And some are simply confused about geography, so that the turkey is named after a country it does not come from, while the canary bird is named after islands that were themselves named after dogs.

How to spot them

  • β–ΈA name that is a plain description once you know the language
  • β–ΈThe Spanish definite article still stuck to the front
  • β–ΈA dog named for splashing about; a bird named for an island named for dogs
  • β–ΈThe question is nearly always: which language, and what does it literally mean?

Key facts

German Pudel, from a verb meaning to splash about, for a dog bred to retrieve waterfowl

Poodle, short for Pudelhund, 'water dog'; the Low German root is cognate with English puddle

Spanish el lagarto, 'the lizard', taken over whole by English speakers in the 1560s

Alligator; the definite article came with it, and Latin lacertus also gives 'lizard'

Greek for 'river horse'

Hippopotamus

Latin for a pig with spines

Porcupine, from porcus spina

Greek skiouros, 'shadow-tail'

Squirrel β€” the creature that sits in the shade of its own tail

Malay orang hutan, 'man of the forest'

Orangutan

Latin lemures, the restless spirits of the dead, applied to a wide-eyed nocturnal primate of Madagascar

Lemur, named by Linnaeus

Afrikaans for 'earth pig'

Aardvark

Key ideas

  • Folk etymology reshapes a foreign word into familiar English pieces. Spanish cucaracha became cockroach, because cock and roach are English words and cucaracha is not; the insect is neither a bird nor a fish.

Quick-fire facts

  • β€’Poodle is from German Pudel, a shortening of Pudelhund, 'water dog', from a Low German verb meaning to splash
  • β€’Alligator comes from Spanish el lagarto de Indias, 'the lizard of the Indies'; early English forms include aligarto
  • β€’The Canary Islands are named from Latin canaria, 'of the dogs'; the bird is named after the islands, so the canary is named after a dog
  • β€’The turkey is named after the country, by confusion with the guinea fowl traded through Ottoman territory; in Turkish it is hindi and in French dinde, both meaning 'of India'
  • β€’Kangaroo is from the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru; the story that it means 'I don't understand' is false
  • β€’Mongoose is from Marathi mangus and has nothing to do with geese, so the plural is mongooses
  • β€’Dandelion is from French dent-de-lion, 'lion's tooth', after the shape of the leaves
  • β€’Ferret comes from Latin fur, a thief; leopard is leo plus pardos, the animal once thought a hybrid
  • β€’Giraffe is from Arabic zarāfah; the older English name was camelopard, preserved in the constellation Camelopardalis
  • β€’Penguin may be from Welsh pen gwyn, 'white head', and was first applied to the great auk

Drill it β€” 9 cards

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Sources