Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Indigenous languages ·1600s
Jaguar
from jaguara
- Meaning
- The large spotted cat *Panthera onca* of the Americas.
- Source word
- jaguara
- Route into English
- Tupi-Guarani *jaguara* → Portuguese → English. The car brand took the name in 1935, deliberately choosing a predator image to replace the earlier "Swallow Sidecar Company" (abandoned after WWII for obvious reasons).
- Arrived
- 1600s
From Indigenous languages
A loose group: Nahuatl, Taino, Algonquian, Guugu Yimithirr, and others. Colonial contact produced many loans; the speakers were often systematically dispossessed of the land the loanwords described.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.