Etymologically
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gorilla

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 00:53. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/, /ɡɒˈɹɪl.ə/ (UK); /ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin gorilla,[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι (Górillai),[2][5][6][3][4] the name of a tribe of wild, hairy people in a Greek translation of the Carthaginian navigator Hanno's account of his voyage along the coast of West Africa (about 500 BC).[5][6][2][4] It is said to be an African word.[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The largest anthropoid ape, of western equatorial Africa (1847 in Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster; the OED's first quotation is from 1799).[5][6][3][7]

Semantic evolution

Hanno's interpreters called the creatures Gorillae; they were probably chimpanzees or other apes.[6][2] In 1847 the American missionary Thomas S. Savage, drawing on this classical source, applied the name to the great ape he described as Troglodytes gorilla.[2][6][5] From 1884 the word was also applied to a person resembling a gorilla,[7] and then to a brutish man or a thug.[2][3][4]

Timeline

  • c500 BC – Hanno's voyage.[5][6]
  • 1799 – first quotation (OED).[7]
  • 1847 – applied to the ape by Thomas Savage.[2][5][6]
  • 1884 – a person resembling a gorilla.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A very large ape of the forests of equatorial Africa, with a stocky body and dark hair.
  2. A brutish or ugly man.
  3. A thug or hoodlum.

Word family

  • gorillalike
  • gorilloid
  • 800-pound gorilla
  • mountain gorilla

References

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