zébu

See also: zebu, Zebu, and zebù

French

Etymology

Etymology tree

Classical Tibetan མཛོ (mdzo)

Classical Tibetan པོ (po)

Classical Tibetan མཛོ་པོ (mdzo po)

Tibetan མཛོ་པོ (mdzo po)bor.?

French zébu

Uncertain. Possibilities include:

• From Tibetan མཛོ་པོ (mdzo po, “male offspring of a female cow and yak bull”), from Classical Tibetan མཛོ་པོ (mdzo po), from མཛོ (mdzo, “cow–yak hybrid”) +‎ པོ (po, male suffix); or
• From a similar Tibeto-Burman source, such as Tibetan ཟེ་བ (ze ba, “zebu or camel's hump”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ze.by/

• Audio (France (Brétigny-sur-Orge)):

  (file)

Noun

zébu m (plural zébus, feminine zébue or zébute)

1. zebu (Bos taurus indicus)

Descendants

• → Czech: zebu
• → Dutch: zeboe
  • → Caribbean Javanese: sébu
• → English: zebu
  • → Indonesian: zebu
  • → Japanese: ゼブ (zebu)
• → Esperanto: zebuo
  • Ido: zebuo
• → Finnish: seebu
• → German: Zebu
• → Georgian: ზებუ (zebu)
• → Greek: ζεμπού (zempoú)
• → Kazakh: зебу (zebu)
• → Italian: zebù
• → Macedonian: зебу (zebu)
• → Portuguese: zebu
• → Romanian: zebu
• → Russian: зе́бу (zébu, zɛ́bu)
• → Spanish: cebú

Further reading

• “zébu”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012