reindeer
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹeɪndɪə/
ipa: /ˈɹeɪndɪɹ/
rhymes: -eɪndɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: reindeer
form: reindeers
Etymology: From Middle English reyndere, reynder, rayne-dere, from Old Norse hreindýri (“reindeer”), from hreinn (“reindeer”) + dýr (“animal”). Compare Dutch rendier (“reindeer”), German Rentier (“reindeer”), Swedish rendjur (“reindeer”), Danish rensdyr (“reindeer”). Related also to displaced Old English hrān (“reindeer”). Unrelated to rein.
Senses: examples: text: Santa Claus' sleigh is supposedly pulled by eight reindeer
text: Here is a prodigious number of wild beaſts, as ſtags, bears, wolves, foxes of various colours, martens, hares, glittens, beavers, otters, elk, and rein deer: the latter is leſs than a stag.
ref: 1768, D[aniel] Fenning, “LAPLAND”, in The Royal English Dictionary; or, A Treasury of the English Language, 3rd improved edition, London: Printed for R. Baldwin, Hawes and Co., T. Caslon, S. Crowder, J. Johnson, Wilson and Fell, Robinson and Roberts, and B. Collins, →OCLC:
text: The rein-deer, which in Scandinavia can scarcely exist to the south of the sixty-fifth parallel, descends, in consequence of the greater coldness of the climate, to the fiftieth degree, in Chinese Tartary, and often roves into a country of more southern latitude than any part of England.
ref: 1832, Charles Lyell, chapter VI, in Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation, volume II, London: John Murray, →OCLC, page 94:
text: Reindeer are well suited to the taiga’s frigid winters. They can maintain a thermogradient between body core and the environment of up to 100 degrees, in part because of insulation provided by their fur, and in part because of counter-current vascular heat exchange systems in their legs and nasal passages.
ref: 2013 March, Nancy Langston, “Mining the Boreal North”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 13 Apr 2016, page 98:
glosses: Any Arctic and subarctic-dwelling deer of the species Rangifer tarandus, with a number of subspecies.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
glosses: Any species, subspecies, ecotype, or other scientific grouping of such animals.
Hyponyms: word: caribou
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Blitzen
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Comet
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Cupid
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Dancer
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Dasher
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Donner
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Prancer
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
sense: Santa Claus's reindeer
word: Vixen
Derived terms: alt: †R. t. eogroenlandicus
word: Arctic reindeer
alt: R. t. buskensis
word: busk reindeer
alt: R. t. fennicus
word: Finnish forest reindeer
alt: R. t. phylarchus
word: Kamchatkan reindeer
alt: R. t. tarandus
word: mountain reindeer
alt: R. t. pearsoni
word: Novaya Zemlya reindeer
word: reindeer calf
word: reindeer corn
word: reindeer games
word: Reindeer Lake
taxonomic: Cladonia spp.
word: reindeer lichen
taxonomic: Cladonia spp.
word: reindeer moss
word: reindeer spitz
alt: R. t. valentinae
word: Siberian forest reindeer
alt: R. t. sibiricus
word: Siberian tundra reindeer
alt: R. t. platyrhynchus
word: Svalbard reindeer
alt: R. t. tarandus
word: wild reindeer