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bison

Etymology and origin of the English word bison

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbaɪsən/, /ˈbaɪzən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bison or directly from Latin bisōn (“wild ox”),[2][3][4][5][6] of Germanic origin,[2][3][4][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *wisand- “aurochs”,[4] related to Old High German wisunt and Old English wesend.[2][3][4][5][6] It is possibly of Baltic or Slavic origin, meaning “the stinking animal”, from its rutting scent,[4] and may be related to weasel.[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The European wild ox (c. 1600–11),[4][3][5] though the Latin plural bysontes appears in English before 1398.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The Germanic name died out in English with the animal itself, and the word was reintroduced from Latin.[4] The European bison or wisent, once widespread, survived in the 20th century only in a Polish forest reserve.[4] From 1693 the name was applied to the North American species commonly called a buffalo,[7][4] whose numbers fell so low that the Century Dictionary (1902) thought it would soon be extinct in the wild; it has since recovered on protected land.[4]

Timeline

  • before 1398 – the Latin plural bysontes.[3]
  • c. 1611 – the European bison.[3][5]
  • 1693 – the American bison.[7][4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A large shaggy-maned North American bovine mammal, Bison bison, with a large head, short curved horns and a hump; the American buffalo.
  2. A similar, somewhat smaller animal of Europe, Bison bonasus; the wisent.

Word family

  • American bison
  • European bison
  • buffalo
  • wisent
  • aurochs
  • weasel

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Bison.” Etymologically, 11 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/bison. Accessed 11 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·