Tatou
/təˈtuː/noun
An armadillo, especially one of the New World species.
Did you know?Tatou entered European vocabulary through colonial encounters with the armadillo, whose armored body seemed so unfamiliar that several languages adopted Indigenous names for it.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-Colonial Era
Proto-Tupian
*tatu
“An ancestral Indigenous term for an armadillo; the exact internal meaning is uncertain.”
16th Century
Old Tupi
tatu
“Armadillo, a burrowing, armor-plated mammal of South America.”
16th–17th Century
Portuguese
tatu
“A borrowed name for the armadillo encountered in Brazil.”
17th Century
French
tatou
“Armadillo; a French adaptation of the Portuguese and Tupi term.”
Modern English
English
tatou
“A rare English word for an armadillo, also appearing in variant forms such as tatu and tatouay.”