tatouay
noun
Forms tatouays
- noun An armadillo (Cabassous tatouay), native to tropical South America; the broad-banded armadillo.
Synonyms
Etymology
From a compound word in a Tupi-Guarani language (compare tatu-ai), of which the first element is ultimately from Old Tupi tatu (“armadillo”). Compare Portuguese tatu, French tatou. The second element (ay or ai) may mean "wound" because of a belief that its fat was used on wounds, or "colored", or "worthless".
Webster’s 1913
- noun An armadillo (Xenurus unicinctus), native of the tropical parts of South America. It has about thirteen movable bands composed of small, nearly square, scales. The head is long; the tail is round and tapered, and nearly destitute of scales; the claws of the fore feet are very large. Called also tatouary, and broad-banded armadillo.
Etymology [Of Brazilian origin; cf. Pg. tatu, F. tatou.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “tatouay”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details