gnu

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Dutch gnoe,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which renders Khoekhoe i-ngu (“wildebeest”).^[2][3] The OED takes it as a borrowing of the Khoekhoe and San word,^[7] the American Heritage Dictionary gives the source as Xhosa i-ngu (“white-tailed gnu”),^[4] and Collins derives it from nqu.^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline trace it further to a word of the Southern Bushman (San) languages written with two clicks,^[2][3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Hoad and Partridge to the same San source.^[9][6][10] The Dictionary of South African English thinks the word perhaps imitates the snort of the animal when alarmed and was probably first related to a Khoekhoe and San word for "black", applied to the black wildebeest;^[11][12] the Oxford Dictionary of English also calls it perhaps imitative.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

1777, as gnoo, in Georg Forster's A Voyage Round the World, which mentions another kind of wild ox "called by the natives gnoo".^[14][11][9]

Semantic evolution

The spelling gnu became established after 1786,^[14] when the translation of Sparrman's Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope described the T'Gnu as a Hottentot name for an animal between the horse and the ox.^[11] The translation of Le Vaillant's Travels (1790) explained that the Hottentots called the animal nou preceded by a click, and suggested that the g was Colonel Gordon's way of writing that click.^[11] Other early spellings include gnoe, gnou, knoo and n'gou.^[11][7] According to the Dictionary of South African English, the Khoekhoe and San distinguished this name, for the black wildebeest, from another for the blue wildebeest.^[11] The pronunciation with an initial /ɡ/, jocular in British English, comes from Flanders and Swann's 1950s song The Gnu.^[7]

Timeline

• 1777 – gnoo, a South African wild ox.^[14][11][9]
• 1786 – the spelling gnu.^[11][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. Either of two large antelopes of Africa, of the genus Connochaetes, with an oxlike head, a short mane and a long tufted tail, and curved horns in both sexes; a wildebeest.^[8][9][5]
2. brindled gnu: the blue wildebeest, and white-tailed gnu: the black wildebeest.^[5][8]

Related words

• new

Usage notes

The OED also records GNU (1983), a free software system similar to Unix,^[7] and the Dictionary of South African English the GNU, the Government of National Unity formed after the 1994 election, pronounced as separate letters.^[11] Dictionary.com notes that gnu can be confused with knew and new.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles, Dictionary Unit for South African English, https://dsae.co.za
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology