bison

UK/ˈbaɪ̯sən/US/ˈbaɪ̯sən/

nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,663 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: bisons

A bison is a shaggy wild ox of the plains. An American bison, a herd of bison, the bison returned.

Tens of millions once crossed North America and fewer than a thousand were left by 1890, killed deliberately in part to starve the Plains nations. Herds have been rebuilt since. The plural is bison, and the European species survives in Poland.

Definitions of bison

1nounbisonA shaggy wild ox of the plains.B1+
“A herd of bison grazed on the open plains.”

bison is an animal.

Also accepted in games: buffalo

Where it comes from

Latin bison names the wild ox, probably from a Germanic word.

Proto-Indo-European
*wes-
Proto-Germanic
*wisundaz — wild ox, aurochs
Latin
bison — wild ox
Middle French
bison
Middle English
bison
English, today
bison

From Middle English bison, bysountes, from Middle French bison, from Latin bison (“wild ox”). The Latin term is recorded in the 1st century, likely a direct loan from Proto-Germanic wisundaz (“wild ox, aurochs”) (see for full etymology). Akin to Old High German wisunt (“bison”), German Wisent (“bison”), Old English wesend (“bison, buffalo, wild ox”), Middle Dutch wesent (“wild ox”). a doublet of wisent.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Animals

Practise this word

bison in the wild

A bison (pl.: bison) is a large bovine in the genus Bison (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini.
Bison
Of the two surviving species, the American bison, B. bison, found only in North America, is the more numerous.
Bison
The European bison is the heaviest wild land animal in Europe, and individuals in the past may have been even larger than their modern-day descendants.
European bison
In the 19th century, there were scattered reports of wolves, lions, tigers, and bears hunting bison.
European bison
The American bison has also been introduced in Russia, with a population established in Ingilor Nature Park in Yakutia.
American bison

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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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