echidna
pronunciation
How to pronounce echidna in British English:
UK [ɪˈkɪdnə]
How to pronounce echidna in American English:
US [ɪ'kɪdnə]
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- Noun:
- New Guinea echidnas
- burrowing spine-covered monotreme of Australia having a long snout and claws for hunting ants and termites
Word Origin
- echidna (n.)
- Australian egg-laying hedgehog-like mammal, 1810, said to have been named by Cuvier, usually explained as from Greek ekhidna "snake, viper" (also used metaphorically of a treacherous wife or friend), from ekhis "snake," from PIE *angwhi- "snake, eel" (cognates: Norwegian igle, Old High German egala, German Egel "leech," Latin anguis "serpent, snake"). But this sense is difficult to reconcile with this animal (unless it is a reference to the ant-eating tongue). The name perhaps belongs to Latin echinus, Greek ekhinos "sea-urchin," originally "hedgehog" (in Greek also "sharp points"), which Watkins explains as "snake-eater," from ekhis "snake." The 1810 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives as the animal's alternative name "porcupine ant-eater." Or, more likely, the name refers to Echidna as the name of a serpent-nymph in Greek mythology, "a beautiful woman in the upper part of her body; but instead of legs and feet, she had from the waist downward, the form of a serpent," in which case the animal was so named for its mixed characteristics (early naturalists doubted whether it was mammal or amphibian).
Example
- 1. Wait ! Wait , you 're an echidna !
- 2. The echidna leads the gtms team australia defense .
- 3. Darwin would have studied monotremes egg-laying mammals such as the echidna .
- 4. An echidna resembles a less-prickly porcupine .
- 5. One of the mascots for the 2000 olympics , in australia , is the echidna .