chevrotain

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English

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WOTD – 22 May 2022

Etymology

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The kanchil, lesser Malay chevrotain, or lesser mouse-deer (Tragulus kanchil), a species of chevrotain.

Borrowed from French chevrotain, chevrotin (“ruminant of the family Tragulidae”), the diminutive of Old French chevrot (“young goat, kid”), itself a diminutive of chievre (“goat”) (modern French chèvre (“she-goat”)) + -ot (diminutive suffix).[1] Chievre is derived from Latin capra (“she-goat”), from caper (“billy goat, he-goat”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kápros (“billy goat, he-goat”)) + -a (suffix forming feminine counterparts of masculine nouns).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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chevrotain (plural chevrotains)

  1. Any of several small hornless ruminants of the family Tragulidae (genera Hyemoschus, Moschiola, and Tragulus), native to tropical rainforests of South and Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa; a mouse deer.
    • 1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Animals of the Sheep and Goat Kind”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume III, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 76:
      To this vve may add the Chevrotin, or little Guinea Deer, vvhich is the leaſt of all cloven-footed quadrupeds, and perhaps the moſt beautiful; its legs, at the ſmalleſt part, are not much thicker than the ſhank of a tobacco-pipe; it is about ſeven inches high, and about tvvelve from the point of the noſe to the inſertion of the tail.

Hyponyms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “chevrotain | chevrotin, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019; “chevrotain, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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