jaguar
Other forms: jaguars
One of your pet cat's many wild relatives is the jaguar, a large, spotted animal that's found in North, Central, and South America. The jaguar is so fast that a famously fancy car is named after it.
The jaguar, third-largest of all the cats, looks like a bigger, stronger version of a leopard. They were once common in the western part of the United States, but have nearly been eradicated there and verge on being endangered worldwide. The word jaguar is Portuguese in origin, from the Tupi jaguara, which is a general term for any large, predatory animal.
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a large spotted feline of tropical America similar to the leopard; in some classifications considered a member of the genus Felissynonyms: Felis onca, Panthera onca, panther
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Vocabulary lists containing jaguar
Here are 15 common English words whose roots come from indigenous languages of the Americas. The fate of the people who spoke these languages varies greatly, from tribes lost to history (that we only know about through records of other tribes) to the Guarani, whose language at last count had over 4 million speakers in Paraguay. All of these peoples, whatever their current status, have contributed their ideas and their perspectives through the English words below. Many of these terms have to do with animals and foods to be found in nature, but the Algonquian roots of "tuxedo" may come as a surprise! Read on below for tales of many more English words from indigenous sources.