Monday, October 15, 2007

Naming and etymology of Tiger

The word "tiger" is taken from the Greek word "tigris", which itself is consequential "possibly from an Iranian source." In American English, "Tigress" was first record in 1611. "Tiger's-eye" is a name for a golden-brown with stripes, chatoyant, fibrous assortment of quartz used as a semi-precious gemstone. It was one of the lots of species formerly described, as Felis tigris, by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae. The generic factor of its scientific designation, Panthera tigris, is often presumed to derive from Greek pan- ("all") and ther ("beast"), but this may be a folk etymology. Although it came into English from side to side the classical languages, panthera is probably of East Asian origin, meaning "the yellowish animal," or "whitish-yellow".

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