Tesem
Appearance
See also: tesem
English
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Egyptian_-_Man_with_Calf_and_Dog_-_Walters_22422_-_Detail_B.jpg/220px-Egyptian_-_Man_with_Calf_and_Dog_-_Walters_22422_-_Detail_B.jpg)
Etymology
[edit]From a nineteenth-century transcription of Egyptian ṯzm (“hound”).
Noun
[edit]Tesem (plural Tesems)
- An extinct kind of dog from Ancient Egypt resembling a greyhound
- 1933, Henry Devenish Skinner, “Origin and Relationships of the Polynesian Dog”, in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, volume 42, number 1, page 18:
- We possess many illustrations of these Tesem greyhounds from the whole period of the Egyptian supremacy, some 3,000 years, and much care must have been taken to keep them pure-bred.
- 1984, Patricia Sylvester, The Reader’s Digest Illustrated Book of Dogs, page 225:
- Greyhounds, one of the oldest known groups of dogs, share a common ancestor — the Tesem.
- 2002, Johan Gallant, The Story of the African Dog, page 65:
- The Egyptians had inherited the Tesem as a sleek sight hound breed that had been derived from early domesticated dogs in Southwest Asia.