Definitions

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

  • noun A large deer (Rangifer tarandus) of the Arctic tundra and northern boreal forests, having large hooves and long branched antlers in both sexes. Subspecies native to Eurasia are usually called reindeer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun No fewer than 10 species of caribou have been described from North America, some being restricted to a comparatively limited area. Such are Rangifer terranovæ of Newfoundland and R. dawsoni from the Queen Charlotte Islands. The most eastern species is R. grœnlandicus from Greenland, the westernmost R. granti from the end of the Alaska peninsula.
  • noun The American woodland reindeer, Rangifer caribou or R. tarandus, inhabiting northerly North America as far as the limit of trees, where it is replaced by the barren-ground reindeer, to which the name is also extended.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The American reindeer, especially the common or woodland species (Rangifer Caribou).
  • noun See under Barren.
  • noun the common reindeer (Rangifer Caribou) of the northern forests of America.

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

  • noun Any of several North American subspecies of the reindeer, Rangifer tarandus.

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

  • noun Arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called `reindeer' in Eurasia and `caribou' in North America

Etymologies

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

[Mi'kmaq ĝalipu (influenced by Canadian French caribou, also from Mi'kmaq), from Proto-Algonquian *mekālixpowa : *mekāl-, to scrape + *-ixpo-, snow.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Canadian French caribou, from Mi'kmaq qalipu ("snow-shoveller"), from qalipi ("to shovel snow"), from Proto-Algonquian.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I always think of the Pixies first album when I see this word.

    December 14, 2006

  • I but lament

    this human form,

    where I was born;

    I now repent —

    Cariboooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou,

    cariboooo-oooooooooooooooooooooooooo-ooooou

    August 4, 2008