Etymologically
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cougar

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈkuːɡə/[1]
  • US: /ˈkuɡɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French couguar,[2][3][4][5][6] a name coined by the French naturalist Buffon,[4][2][7][8] in 1761 according to Barnhart,[4] on the model of jaguar.[4][3][5][6][7] Buffon shortened New Latin cuguacuarana,[6][7] which Barnhart gives as cuguacuara;[4] the OED gives it as Marcgraf's name cuguacu ara, repeated by Pison in 1648 and taken up by Ray in 1693.[2] This form was apparently a misreading of Portuguese çuçuarana, as the Portuguese wrote the word in Brazil, with the cedillas left out.[4][7][3] The Portuguese word is from Tupi suasuarana,[4][6][5][7] literally "false deer", from suasú (“deer”) and rana (“false”), from the animal's colour;[6][4][3] the American Heritage Dictionary glosses the second part as "like".[5] Hoad, Weekley, the OED and the Oxford Dictionary of English trace the name instead to a Guarani word, and Etymonline mentions that as another proposed source.[9][8][2][10][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The large American wild cat now also called the puma: 1774, in Oliver Goldsmith's History of the Earth.[2][4][3][6]

Semantic evolution

The animal also goes by the names puma, panther, mountain lion and catamount.[3][2][6] The spelling couguar was also used in English, but is now rare.[11][6] The slang sense, an older woman who seeks younger men as lovers, is recorded by 2002, and is said in some sources to have begun in Canada, probably with an allusion to the predatory nature of the cat.[3] Green's Dictionary of Slang has it from 2006,[12] and Collins labels it US and Canadian slang for a woman in her thirties or forties.[13]

Timeline

  • 1761 – couguar coined in French by Buffon.[4]
  • 1774 – the American wild cat, puma.[2][4][6]
  • 2002 – slang, an older woman who pursues younger men.[3]
  • 2006 – slang sense in a New Jersey newspaper.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A large, powerful, tawny, unspotted wild cat of the Americas; the puma or mountain lion.[6][13][2]
  2. (slang) A middle-aged woman who seeks or has a romantic or sexual relationship with a younger man.[6][13][12]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins