coyote
UK /kɔɪˈəʊt/ · US /kəˈjoʊ.ti/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms coyotes coyoteing coyoting coyoted cayeute cayota cayote coyoto
- noun (zoology) Canis latrans, a species of canine native to North America.
- noun (US, informal) A smuggler of undocumented immigrants across the land border from Latin America into the United States of America.
- verb To prospect for gold by manually digging holes into overlying earth, as into a hillside.
- proper noun An island of El Salvador.
- proper noun A trickster figure found in many Native American folklores.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish coyote, from a Nahuan language, from Proto-Nahuan *koyoo-tl. Compare Chinook ki-o-tī.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A carnivorous animal (Canis latrans), allied to the dog, found in the western part of North America; --called also prairie wolf.
- noun South Dakota; --a nickname.
Etymology [Spanish Amer., fr. Mexican coyotl.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “coyote”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details