Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A long-legged, swift-running wild cat (Acinonyx jubatus) of Africa and southwest Asia, having tawny, black-spotted fur and nonretractile claws. The cheetah, the fastest animal on land, can run for short distances at about 96 kilometers (60 miles) per hour.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A species of leopard (
Cynælurus jubatus ) tamed and used for hunting in India. The woolly cheetah of South Africa isCynælurus laneus . It runs very fast in short spurts while hunting.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A distinctive member (
Acinonyx jubatus ) of thecat family , slightly smaller than theleopard , but with proportionately longer limbs and a smaller head; it is native to Africa and also credited with being the fastest terrestrial animal.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun long-legged spotted cat of Africa and southwestern Asia having nonretractile claws; the swiftest mammal; can be trained to run down game
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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Now he's at work on a new book and photo project taking him around the world, with a new means of transportation, a bouncy gadget he calls cheetah legs.
David Frey: Shooting From the Hip David Frey 2010
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Now he's at work on a new book and photo project taking him around the world, with a new means of transportation, a bouncy gadget he calls cheetah legs.
David Frey: Shooting From the Hip David Frey 2010
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First introduced to the series when she was a tiny cub in 2005, Duma the cheetah is now about a year old and nearly equal in size to her mother (the image of Duma used above is from the Duma slideshow on the BBC website).
Finally: big cat kills uncensored and uncut Darren Naish 2006
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First introduced to the series when she was a tiny cub in 2005, Duma the cheetah is now about a year old and nearly equal in size to her mother (the image of Duma used above is from the Duma slideshow on the BBC website).
Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Understanding the economic base of the country is extremely important to long-term cheetah survival.
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Amongst other things we saw a cheetah, which is pretty rare, and we also had a good time watching the baboons and warthogs hanging out together on the savannah.
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Amongst other things we saw a cheetah, which is pretty rare, and we also had a good time watching the baboons and warthogs hanging out together on the savannah.
Archive 2008-07-01 jen 2008
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And the cheetah is the only member of the cat family that has non-retractable claws.
Free to Run Academic 2009
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Given the cheetah's tendency to activity, cats who spend most of their time sleeping in the sun might well label the cheetah hyperactive.
Free to Run Academic 2009
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And the cheetah is the only member of the cat family that has non-retractable claws.
Archive 2009-06-01 Academic 2009
cathari commented on the word cheetah
My cats race each other a lot. One claims to be a natural cheetah. Then the other says cheetahs never win.
November 1, 2007
skipvia commented on the word cheetah
He must be lion. Cheetahs will all the time. (Look at the New England Patriots, for example..)
November 1, 2007
cathari commented on the word cheetah
Or she's just looking for lynx to her ancestors.
November 1, 2007
reesetee commented on the word cheetah
Where's chained_bear? We need drum rolls on this page. ;-)
November 1, 2007
fbharjo commented on the word cheetah
This is a lot gazzle (sic gazelle) dazzle
November 1, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word cheetah
Ba dump bump!
Sorry, wordie was down all morning for me. This is the first time I could get the page to load at all.
November 2, 2007
john commented on the word cheetah
Yeah, sorry about that. The company that hosts Wordie, slicehost, tanked this morning. Traffic couldn't get through to any sites they host.
After which I took it down for a few minutes to add definitions to words. They come from WordNet, an open-source lexicographic database from Princeton. I'll polish this over time (WordNet supports more than just definitions, it's pretty cool), but figured I'd throw what I have out there, see how folks feel about it.
November 2, 2007
skipvia commented on the word cheetah
Whew! We thought you had forgotten about us, c_b. ;)
November 2, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word cheetah
Ba dump bump!
p.s. headcheese.
November 2, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word cheetah
I noticed those definitions, John. Slick! They're nice and faint and unobtrusive. Some of them have slight errors in punctuation though (didn't someone call me a punctuationista once?), and I'd love if this page reflected that cheetahs, in short sprints, are the fastest land mammal.
Or did someone debunk that?
November 2, 2007
reesetee commented on the word cheetah
Thanks, John! Pretty snazzy. C_b, I called myself a punctuationista, but you joined in readily. :-)
As for the WordNet stuff, I doubt we can do anything about the punctuation at our end, so we'll have to learn to live with it. But it seems okay here--semicolons are standard "dictionary-ish" for separating distinct definitions. Or were you not referring to this page?
November 2, 2007
uselessness commented on the word cheetah
Looks good, John! But on multi-word phrases it only defines the first word (see hilarious misunderstanding for an example. Would be nice if it could either define every word in the phrase, or define the whole phrase (if it knows it), or not define anything at all.
November 2, 2007