hippopotamus

Etymology

It first appears as inherited from Middle English ypotame, also ipotamus,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ypotamus and Middle French ypotame,^[5][6] from the medieval Latin ypotamus or hippotamus, which the OED explains as a shortening of the classical form by haplology.^[5][3] The modern form is borrowed from Latin hippopotamus,^[5][2][7] an imitation of the Latin spelling,^[3] from Ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος (hippopótamos, “river horse”),^[5][2][8][9] which is recorded in Galen.^[5] It is formed from ἵππος (híppos, “horse”) and ποταμός (potamós, “river”),^[5][8][10] and replaced an earlier phrase, Herodotus's ὁ ἵππος ὁ ποτάμιος (ho híppos ho potámios, “the horse of the river”).^[5][11][9] Etymonline traces the first element to Proto-Indo-European *ekwo- (“horse”),^[2][7] also the source of Latin equus,^[9][12] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster relate the second to πέτομαι (pétomai, “to fly”), the river being literally a falling or rushing thing.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The African animal: about 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder, under the Middle English form: Ypotamos comen flyngynge.^[2][3] The OED's first quotation is from Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, before 1398.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English forms, from Latin as deformed in manuscripts and in Old French,^[2][3][5] gave way to learned spellings: hippopotame in 1563,^[3] the year Merriam-Webster gives as its first date,^[10] and hippopotamus in 1600.^[3] The English translation river-horse appears in Holland's Pliny in 1601,^[2] and Old English had glossed the animal as sæhengest.^[2] Johnson (1755) defines it as the river horse, found in the Nile.^[13] From 1572 to 1830 the word also named a heraldic and mythological creature, part horse and part fish or dolphin.^[5] The clipping hippo is dated to 1850 by the revised OED and to 1872 by Etymonline.^[5][2] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories observes that the animal is in fact closer to the hog than to the horse, and that biblical scholars equate it with the behemoth of Job.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – ypotame, the animal, in Kyng Alisaunder.^[2][3]
• 1563 – the form hippopotame.^[3][10]
• 1572 – a heraldic creature, part horse and part fish (obsolete by 1830).^[5]
• 1600 – the form hippopotamus.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very large, herbivorous, chiefly aquatic African mammal (Hippopotamus amphibius), with thick, nearly hairless skin, a huge mouth and short legs: A hippopotamus surfaced beside the boat.^[10][7][15]
2. The related but smaller pygmy hippopotamus.^[7][15][10]

Word family

• hippo

Related words

• hippo-
• Mesopotamia
• potamic
• hippodrome
• equine
• potamo-

Usage notes

The plural is hippopotamuses or hippopotami.^[7][15][10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins