ichneumon
pronunciation
How to pronounce ichneumon in British English:
UK [ɪk'nju:mən]
How to pronounce ichneumon in American English:
US [ɪk'njumən]
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- Noun:
- northern African mongoose; in ancient times thought to devour crocodile eggs
Word Origin
- ichneumon
- ichneumon: [16] Ichneumon comes from a Greek word which meant literally ‘tracker’. This was ikhneúmōn, a derivative of íkhnos ‘track, footstep’. Aristotle used it as the name for a species of wasp that hunted spiders, and it was adopted into English in this sense for the ichneumon fly, a wasplike insect with parasitic larvae, in the 17th century. Its original English application, however, was to a variety of African mongoose which ‘tracks down’ or hunts out crocodile eggs.
- ichneumon (n.)
- 1570s, originally a weasel-like animal in Egypt, Latinized from Greek ikhneumon, literally "searcher, tracker," perhaps because it hunts crocodile eggs, from ikhneuein "hunt for, track," from ikhnos "a track, footstep, trace, clue," of unknown origin. Used by Aristotle for a species of wasp that hunts spiders (a sense in English from 1650s).
Example
- 1. This image depicts the eye and antenna base of a ichneumon wasp .
- 2. Ichneumon wasp compound eye and antenna base ( 40x ) , reflected ( episcopic ) light illumination
- 3. The ichneumon wasp paralyses its prey without killing it and lays its larva inside this convenient source of fresh meat , to eat it slowly alive .