aurochs

UK/ˈaʊɹɒks/US/ˈaʊɹɒks/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

An aurochs was a huge wild ox now extinct. Hunt the aurochs.

It was the ancestor of all domestic cattle and stood nearly two metres at the shoulder. The last aurochs died in a Polish forest in 1627, which is a well-recorded date.

Definitions of aurochs

1nounaurochsA huge wild ox now extinct.C2
“The aurochs on the cave wall is drawn twice the size of a man.”

aurochs is an animal.

Where it comes from

German Auerochse is a compound meaning wild ox, from Old High German ur plus ohso.

Proto-Germanic
*ūraz
Old High German
ūrohso — aurochs
Middle High German
ūrochse — aurochs
German
Aurochs
English, today
aurochs

Built from

ūro · Old High German — aurochs
*ūrô · Proto-Germanic — aurochs
ohso · Old High German — ox

Borrowed from German Aurochs, an early variant of Auerochse, from Middle High German ūrochse (“aurochs”), from Old High German ūrohso (“aurochs”), a compound consisting of ūro (“aurochs”) (from Proto-Germanic ūraz, ūrô (“aurochs”)) + ohso (“ox”). Akin to Old English ūr (“aurochs”), Old Norse úrr (“aurochs”), Middle Low German ūrosse (“aurochs”), Old English oxa (“ox”). More at ox.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

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aurochs in the wild

The aurochs was part of the Pleistocene megafauna and had an expansive range spanning from western Europe and northern Africa to the Indian subcontinent and East Asia.
Aurochs
The oldest-known aurochs fossils date to the Middle Pleistocene.
Aurochs
As a result of this, some breeds, like Heck cattle, are at best a vague look-alike of the extinct wild type aurochs, according to the literature.
Breeding back
There are considerable differences between Heck cattle and the aurochs in build, height, and body proportions.
Heck cattle
The escutcheon's aurochs head accompanied by a rose, crescent and pointed star is derived from the coat of arms of the Principality of Moldavia.
Coat of arms of Moldova

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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