Tapir
/ˈteɪ.pɪər/noun
A large, thick-skinned mammal with a short prehensile snout, native to Central and South America and Southeast Asia.
Did you know?The English word tapir ultimately comes from a Tupi word recorded by early Portuguese explorers in Brazil, showing how colonial natural history often preserved Indigenous animal names instead of replacing them.
Etymological Timeline
Tupi-Guarani languages
Tupi
tapira
“tapir”
16th Century
Portuguese
tapira
“a tapir, borrowed from Indigenous Brazilian speech”
17th Century
French
tapir
“a tapir”
18th Century
English
tapir
“a South American mammal with a short flexible snout”
Modern English
English
tapir
“the same mammal, now also applied to Asian tapirs in scientific usage”