caribou

Etymology

It is borrowed from French caribou, a word of Canadian French,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Mi'kmaq qalipu,^[1][7][6] for which the OED reconstructs an earlier form *qaripu.^[2] The word is an agent noun of an Algonquian verb meaning "to shovel snow", so called because the animal scrapes away snow with its hooves to reach the plants beneath;^[2][6][8][9] Etymonline, Barnhart, Klein and Partridge give the literal sense as "pawer, scratcher".^{[3][4][10][11]} Wiktionary traces the Mi'kmaq word to Proto-Algonquian *maka·lipowa (“it shovels snow”),^[1] and the American Heritage Dictionary analyses the Proto-Algonquian name as "scrape" plus "snow".^[7] The OED compares the cognate Malecite-Passamaquoddy mokalip (“caribou”), the source of the old English name maccarib, and Ojibwe mangaanibii (“he shovels snow”).^[2][5] Some early English spellings were apparently remodelled after French bœuf (“ox”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A North American reindeer: 1609, in Pierre Erondelle's English translation of Marc Lescarbot's account of New France, the same year as the first French record.^[2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1665, as American English,^[12][4] and Etymonline to the 1660s.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning: the reindeer of northern North America, now especially the migratory barren-ground caribou, with other kinds named by a distinguishing word.^[2][5] Collins notes that the same animal is called a reindeer in Europe and Asia, and that in Canada it is also called tuktu.^[13] In Canadian English, especially in Quebec, a caribou is also a drink of red wine mixed with spirits.^[14][13] The Shorter Oxford records the compound caribou moss, reindeer moss.^[8]

Timeline

• 1609 – a North American reindeer.^[2]
• c. 1665 – the word in American English, in Barnhart's dating.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large deer of northern North America, of the same species as the reindeer, with large branched antlers in both sexes and broad hooves.^[5][13][2]
2. The meat or hide of this animal.^[14]
3. (Canada) A drink of red wine mixed with grain alcohol or whisky.^[14][13]

Related words

• reindeer
• maccarib

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c Barber, Katherine, ed. (2004), The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Toronto: Oxford University Press