Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several large, chiefly nocturnal, odd-toed ungulates of the genus Tapirus of tropical America and Southeast Asia, having a stocky body, short legs, and a fleshy, trunklike proboscis.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hoofed mammal of the family Tapiridæ.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of large odd-toed ungulates belonging to Tapirus, Elasmognathus, and allied genera. They have a long prehensile upper lip, short ears, short and stout legs, a short, thick tail, and short, close hair. They have three toes on the hind feet, and four toes on the fore feet, but the outermost toe is of little use.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the wallah.

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

  • noun Any one the species of large odd-toed ungulates of the taxonomic family Tapiridae with a long prehensile upper lip, of which all four surviving species are in genus Tapirus.

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

  • noun large inoffensive chiefly nocturnal ungulate of tropical America and southeast Asia having a heavy body and fleshy snout

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps French, ultimately from Tupí tapiira, tapir.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French tapir, from Tupian tapira.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "rip at" in reverse

    January 26, 2007

  • Or swine-like animals. Same thing.

    March 27, 2007

  • Who is to say it is "inoffensive"?

    December 1, 2007

  • WeirdNet is the new Miss Manners!

    December 1, 2007

  • And it does seem to have a curious affinity for fleshiness.

    December 1, 2007

  • Maybe it's inoffensive in the sense that it won't attack you.

    December 3, 2007

  • I'm offended by its smell.

    December 5, 2007

  • The first time I saw one of these, it was leashed on a porch in Bangkok, Thailand. Weirdest thing I'd ever seen up until then.

    December 5, 2007

  • If some prat called me an ungulate I'd probably be offended. Then I'd go home and leaf through the dictionary with my fleshy snout. And, um ...

    December 5, 2007

  • @pomegranate: What weirder things have you seen since?

    @bilby: I've been called much worse than an ungulate!

    December 5, 2007

  • @SonofGroucho: (1) A baby cobra, probably two inches long, trying to strike my very threatening work boot;

    (2) A dog lying on a sidewalk and being run over by a bicycle without moving a muscle; (3) The city of Monroe, LA.

    December 5, 2007

  • I think my level of offence would depend on whether I was called an even-toed or odd-toed ungulate.

    December 5, 2007

  • I'd love it if someone called me an ungulate. (Unless I really hated that person, of course.) I'd probably laugh my rear off (and my rear could use some laughing off) just to hear the word in daily conversation.

    December 5, 2007

  • Baby tapirs look like ambulatory watermelons. And is there anything cuter than a charging baby tapir?

    December 5, 2007

  • Mollusque, that image is truly adorable! The second link you posted, though, gave me a 404 File Not Found. Wah!

    December 5, 2007

  • 'Bout halfway down on this page, c_b. Right, mollusque?

    December 5, 2007

  • Yup, that's him, reesetee. Sorry, c_b, I omitted the closing quote on the href. Now fixed in the earlier comment and repeated here.

    December 6, 2007

  • BLAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HA HA HA HA!!! That's my new avatar. HA HA HA!!

    December 6, 2007

  • Is there some way we can change WeirdNET's definition to: jolly, inoffensive pygmy elephant who just walked through Jackson Pollock's studio?

    December 6, 2007

  • Um, c_b, who or what was your previous avatar?

    December 6, 2007

  • Why, a chained bear, of course. :)

    December 6, 2007

  • How silly of me. Somehow I'd thought of the chained bear as your totem. Does this mean that you've become chained_tapir?

    December 6, 2007

  • Wait. Chained_bear, I thought it was a bewigged chihuahua? (Chained_chihuahua, though, just doesn't have the appropriate oomph.)

    December 7, 2007

  • No, no. I would never chain a tapir, and would prefer not to be one. I would much prefer, if I were a tapir, to be an ambulatory watermelon.

    reesetee, I shamelessly stole that avatar off some person on MySpace, so I can't really say it's mine. Though I think both ambulatory watermelon and bewigged chihuahua are going on my Attack Butterfly list.

    Edit: Oops, I mean vicious sheep list. I get them confused.

    December 8, 2007

  • Where do the nuzzling ungulates fit into the scheme of things?

    March 4, 2008

  • And do watermelons nuzzle?

    March 4, 2008

  • I sometimes enjoy nuzzling watermelons. What bear doesn't? O cool, smooth, melony watermelon... how I love you...

    July 13, 2008

  • *trying to picture a bewigged chihuahua nuzzling a watermelon*

    July 21, 2008

  • Giving the charging baby tapir a run for its money is the chunky baby chow chow.

    August 4, 2008

  • Adorable as the chunky baby chow chow is, mollusque, the charging baby tapir really has it beat.

    August 4, 2008

  • I'm voting TAPIR.

    August 4, 2008

  • "William Randolph Hearst, in more recent times, stocked San Simeon with marvelous acquisitions, which included works of art, his mistress Marion Davies, and a menagerie dominated by a resilient tapir named Squeaky."

    Peaceable Kingdom: the power of nature and the nature of our power over it.

    By: Rowland, Ingrid D.

    Publication: American Scholar

    Date: Friday, September 22 2006

    January 11, 2009

  • cute adult tapir

    April 8, 2009

  • Shame the photopgrapher saw fit to emboss his handle on the poor thing's snout.

    April 8, 2009

  • I was just about to say the same, yarb.

    April 8, 2009

  • LOL Tapirs. I kid you not. (Note: Not surprisingly, they are unfunny.)

    October 27, 2010

  • Also bush-cow.

    August 26, 2022