Meerkatze

German

FWOTD – 6 March 2015

Etymology

From Middle High German merekatze, from Old High German merikazza (11th century); equivalent to Meer (“sea”) +‎ Katze (“cat”). So called probably because they were brought to Europe over the sea from Africa. The restriction to the specific species is obviously not original, but a fairly recent scientific use. Adelung (ca. 1780) still defines it as referring to any long-tailed monkey. Compare Middle Dutch meercatte, whence eventually English meerkat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeːrˌkatsə/, [ˈmeːɐ̯ˌkät͡sə], [ˈmɛɐ̯-]

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

Meerkatze f (genitive Meerkatze, plural Meerkatzen)

1. guenon (kind of monkey)
   • 1907, Friedrich Dahl, Versuche über den Farbensinn bei einer Meerkatze:

Usage notes

• Not to be confused with English meerkat (“kind of mongoose”), the German word for which is Erdmännchen.

Declension

Declension of Meerkatze [feminine]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	eine	die	Meerkatze	die	Meerkatzen
genitive	einer	der	Meerkatze	der	Meerkatzen
dative	einer	der	Meerkatze	den	Meerkatzen
accusative	eine	die	Meerkatze	die	Meerkatzen

Derived terms

• Grüne Meerkatze f

Further reading

• “Meerkatze” in Duden online
• “Meerkatze” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache