Illustration of agouti
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- agouti 1
borrowed from Middle French, borrowed from Tupi akutí
Note: The form (with voiced stop) and spelling depend on French, where the word first appeared in the 16th-century reports of Brazil ("France Antarctique"): in André de Thevet's Les singularitez de la France antarctique, 1558 (agoutin) and Jean de Léry's Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil, 1578 (agouti); agouti was taken up in the next century by Georg Marcgrave and Willem Piso (Historia naturalis Brasiliae, 1648) and in the 18th century by Linnaeus.
1598, in the meaning defined at sense 1
“Agouti.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agouti. Accessed 19 Feb. 2025.
agouti
nounagouti
nounBritannica.com: Encyclopedia article about agouti
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