aswail
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “"Native name". Which Indian language?”)
Noun[edit]
aswail (plural not attested)
- (dated) The sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), an India bear.
- 1832, William Henry Sykes, A Catalogue of the Mammalia and Birds Observed in Dukhun:
- An Aswail brought to me from the woods when quite young, and which lived some time in my possession, fed by choice almost exclusively upon roast mutton and fowl; rejecting all fruits and vegetables.
- 1953, Dirk Pieter Erdbrink, A Review of Fossil and Recent Bears of the Old World, volume 1:
- […] mutilated parts of an Aswail from Ceylon together with parts of a three-toed Sloth […]
References[edit]
- “aswail”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.