gorilla
pronunciation
How to pronounce gorilla in British English:
UK [ɡəˈrɪlə]
How to pronounce gorilla in American English:
US [ɡəˈrɪlə]
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- Noun:
- largest anthropoid ape; terrestrial and vegetarian; of forests of central west Africa
Word Origin
- gorilla
- gorilla: [19] The first we hear of gorilla is as a word used in a Greek translation of the 5thcentury BC Carthaginian explorer Hanno’s account of a voyage to West Africa. He reported encountering there a tribe of wild hairy people, whose females were, according to a local interpreter, called goríllas. In 1847 the American missionary and scientist Thomas Savage adopted the word as the species name of the great ape Troglodytes gorilla, and by the 1850s it had passed into general use.
- gorilla (n.)
- 1847, applied to a species of large apes (Troglodytes gorills) by U.S. missionary Thomas Savage, from Greek gorillai, plural of name given to wild, hairy beings (now supposed to have been chimpanzees) in a Greek translation of Carthaginian navigator Hanno's account of his voyage along the northwest coast of Africa, c. 500 B.C.E. Allegedly an African word. In its inmost recess was an island similar to that formerly described, which contained in like manner a lake with another island, inhabited by a rude description of people. The females were much more numerous than the males, and had rough skins: our interpreters called them Gorillae. We pursued but could take none of the males; they all escaped to the top of precipices, which they mounted with ease, and threw down stones; we took three of the females, but they made such violent struggles, biting and tearing their captors, that we killed them, and stripped off the skins, which we carried to Carthage: being out of provisions we could go no further. [Hanno, "Periplus"] Of persons perceived as being gorilla-like, from 1884.
Example
- 1. Gorilla dung could conceivably be the salvation of the planet .
- 2. Because there 's no doctor out there who doesn 't see medicare as the $ 800 gorilla .
- 3. Would you tickle a gorilla ?
- 4. The zoo 's primate team leader sets out small cups , each marked with a gorilla 's name .
- 5. In 2008 , the only advertisement any marketer could talk about was cadbury 's drumming gorilla .