hippopotamus

UK/ˌhɪp.əˈpɒt.ə.məs/US/ˌhɪp.əˈpɑ.tə.məs/

nounA2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,296 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: hippopotamuses, hippopotami

A hippopotamus is a huge African animal that spends all day in the river. A hippopotamus in the shallows, a bull hippopotamus, hunt the hippopotamus.

It kills more people in Africa than any other large animal, because it is territorial and startlingly fast on land. It cannot actually swim; it walks along the bottom. Its nearest living relatives are whales. The name means river horse.

Definitions of hippopotamus

1nounhippopotamusA huge African animal that lives in rivers.A2+
“A hippopotamus opened its huge mouth and yawned in the muddy river.”

hippopotamus is an animal.

Also accepted in games: hippo

Where it comes from

Greek hippopotamos means river horse — hippos, a horse, plus potamos, a river.

Proto-Indo-European
*h₁eḱ-
Ancient Greek
ἱπποπόταμος
English, today
hippopotamus

Built from

ἵππος · Ancient Greek — horse
ποταμός · Ancient Greek — river

From Latin - and New Latin - hippopotamus, from Ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος, from ἵππος (“horse”) (English hippo-) + ποταμός (“river”). 1560s. Displaced nicker (from native nicor) and river horse.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Animals

Practise this word

hippopotamus in the wild

After elephants and rhinoceroses, the hippopotamus is the next largest land mammal.
Hippopotamus
A rare nocturnal forest creature, the pygmy hippopotamus is a difficult animal to study in the wild.
Pygmy hippopotamus
Dwarf elephant, hippopotamus, giant swan, deer and bear bone deposits found there are of different ages.
Għar Dalam
The pygmy hippopotamus was historically placed in the genus, but today is generally placed in its own genus.
Hexaprotodon
The placement of Whippomorpha within Artiodactyla is a matter of some contention, as hippopotamuses were previously considered to be more closely related to Suidae (pigs) and Tayassuidae (peccaries).
Whippomorpha

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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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