Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An arboreal mammal (Potos flavus) of Central and South America, having brownish fur and a long, prehensile tail.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A procyoniform quadruped of Central and South America, Cercoleptes caudivolvulus, family Cercoleptidæ, series Arctoidea proeyoniformia of the order Feræ or Carnivora.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A nocturnal carnivorous mammal (Cercoleptes caudivolvulus) of South America, about as large as a full-grown cat. It has a prehensile tail and lives in trees. It is the only representative of a distinct family (Cercoleptidæ) allied to the raccoons. Called also potto, and honey bear.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A carnivorous mammal of Central America and South America with a long, prehensile tail, related to the raccoon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a kind of lemur
  • noun arboreal fruit-eating mammal of tropical America with a long prehensile tail

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from earlier Canadian French quincajou, wolverine (the kinkajou being confused with the wolverine in early European descriptions of the animals ), probably blend of Ojibwa gwiingwa'aage and Montagnais kuàkuàtsheu, wolverine.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French quincajou, from an Algonquian) word, probably originally meaning ‘wolverine’ (compare Algonquin Kwingwaage, Ojibwe gwiingwa'aage ("wolverine")), which was later transferred to the South American animal. Related to carcajou.

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