Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large brown or bluish-gray antelope (Boselaphus tragocamelus) native to India, Nepal, and Pakistan, the male of which has short, sturdy horns and strands of long hair hanging down from the throat.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as nilgau: the form most commonly used in India to designate the large antelope Portax pictus.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large antelope, of the genus Boselaphus, from northern India; the blue bull

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun large Indian antelope; male is blue-grey with white markings; female is brownish with no horns

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Hindi nīlgāī, feminine of nīlgāw : nīl, dark blue (from Sanskrit nīla-) + gāw, ox, cow (from Sanskrit gauḥ; see gwou- in Indo-European roots).]

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Examples

  • We hunt whitetail in the South Texas brush country, but I also want something that is versatile enough for feral hog, nilgai antelope and possibly, one day, elk.

    My older sons are 13 and 12 and I am ready to buy them their first rifles. 2009

  • Numerous smaller game came to sniff the dead nilgai, but the waiting hunters shooed them away.

    The Kennedy Detail Gerald Blaine 2010

  • Instead, the two Americans suggested they kill a nilgai—a wild, grass-eating animal similar to an antelope, only much larger, sometimes reaching 1,500 pounds—and use that as bait.

    The Kennedy Detail Gerald Blaine 2010

  • I've also walked off a quail hunt in Texas, and off a whitetail drive on a cottonwood island in Montana, and off a nilgai hunt in Texas after the hunter behind me sent a rifle bullet past my head.

    Why Die When You Can Leave? 2008

  • The Indian guide agreed, and they were successful in bagging a large nilgai on the first day.

    The Kennedy Detail Gerald Blaine 2010

  • Broken Arrow Ranch is allowed to send their sharpshooters onto the land and hunt wild deer, nilgai antelope, and boar.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Organic Food Still Ain’t All That: 2009

  • A number of people refused to hunt with me when I showed up with that gun, bit it took game as diversified as caribou, nilgai, whitetails, mule deer, and I believe, a serpent or two.

    Better Shooting with Oxygen and Water 2007

  • This area is also the southern distributional limit of the nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) in the Indian Peninsula.

    Deccan thorn scrub forests 2008

  • With buildings and an unabated tourist and pilgrim flow, the tree cover has reduced considerably and impacted the numbers of chital, sambar, nilgai, hare and wild boar.

    The King is on the brink ! 2008

  • Four large herbivores, the Asian elephant, greater one-horned rhinoceros, gaur (seasonal occupant), and nilgai or blue bull (in drier grasslands) also co-exist.

    Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands 2008

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