pronghorn

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A small ruminant mammal (Antilocapra americana) resembling an antelope and having small forked horns, found on western North American plains. Also called pronghorn antelope.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Having horns with a prong or snag, as the prongbuck: as, the pronghorn antelope.
2. n. The prongbuck or cabrit. This remarkable animal is an isolated American type, like the saiga of the Old World; it has no near relatives living, and is supposed to be in the line of descent from some stock more or less like the fossil Sivatherium of India. It is not an antelope in any proper sense, though universally so called in the regions it inhabits — the first literary use of the name dating about 1812. The pronghorn was first scientifically described from material furnished by Lewis and Clarke to George Ord, who called it Antilope americana in 1815, but very soon instituted the genus Antilocapra (which see, and Antilocapridæ, for technical characters). The male stands about 3 feet high at the croup and withers; the limbs are very slender; the general form is that of a deer, but rather stouter (contrary to a general impression); the eyes are extremely large and full, and placed directly under the base of the horns; these in the male are from 6 or 8 inches to a foot in length, curved variously, but always with the characteristic prong or snag — in the female mere hairy cones tipped with a horny thimble an inch long. The horns are shed anuually, late in the fall or early in winter. The pelage is close, without any flowing tufts, but coarse and brittle, and nearly worthless; the hide makes a valuable buckskin when dressed. The venison is excellent, resembling mutton rather than deermeat. There is an extensive set of cutaneous sebaceous glands, eleven in number, which during the rut exhale a strong hircine odor. The prongdoe regularly drops twins, usually late in spring or early in summer, and the kids are not spotted (as the young of Cervidæ usually are), but resemble their parents. The bucks and does are alike of a tawny or yellowish-brown color, with a large white disk on the buttocks, a white crescent and triangle on the fore part of the neck, and the under parts and inner sides of the limbs white; the forehead, muzzle, a spot on the neck over the gland, and the horns and hoofs are mostly black or blackish. During most of the year the animals go in bands, sometimes numbering thousands, but oftener of much less extent. They range over all the region of the great plains, from British America far into Mexico, excepting where they have of late years been driven off by the settlement of the country. Unlike the bison, the pronghorn does not appear to have ever ranged east of the Mississippi. It is noted for its fleetness, and for a singular mixture of timidity and curiosity, which renders it susceptible of being “flagged,” or decoyed within rifle-range by the exhibition of any unusual object, as a handkerchief tied to a pole. The gait is buoyant and easy, and when bounding at full speed the animal is probably the fleetest of any American game. But it lacks bottom, and its astonishing bursts of speed cannot be long sustained. Almost any pack of hounds can overtake it, if the game has not too much advantage at the start. The pronghorn is subject to an epidemic disease of unknown character, which in some years has destroyed many thousands. This fact, together with the incessant persecution it suffers, has very appreciably diminished its numbers as well as contracted its range of late years, though it appears to be still very far from the point of extermination.

Wiktionary

1. n. A North American mammal, Antilocapra americana, resembling an antelope, also called pronghorn antelope.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) An American antelope (Antilocapra Americana), native of the plain near the Rocky Mountains. The upper parts are mostly yellowish brown; the under parts, the sides of the head and throat, and the buttocks, are white. The horny sheath of the horns is shed annually. Called also cabrée, cabut, prongbuck, and pronghorned antelope.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. fleet antelope-like ruminant of western North American plains with small branched horns