Definitions

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

  • noun Either of two large African antelopes (Taurotragus oryx or T. derbianus) having a light brown or grayish coat, spirally twisted horns, and in the male a large dewlap.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The Cape elk, Oreas canna, a large bubaline antelope of South Africa, standing 5 feet high at the withers, and weighing from 700 to 900 pounds.
  • noun A name sometimes used for the moose.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A species of large South African antelope (Oreas canna). It is valued both for its hide and flesh, and is rapidly disappearing in the settled districts; -- called also Cape elk.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The elk or moose.

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

  • noun A genus of large South African antelope (Taurotragus), valued both for its hide and flesh.

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

  • noun either of two large African antelopes of the genus Taurotragus having short spirally twisted horns in both sexes

Etymologies

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

[Afrikaans, from Dutch, elk, from obsolete German Elend, of Baltic origin; akin to Lithuanian élnias, deer.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Dutch eland ("elk").

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Examples

  • The eland, which is the most magnificent of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more than deer.

    Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

  • The eland is the largest of all antelopes, and we ran across a few on the Tana River and a few on the Guas Ngishu Plateau.

    In Africa Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country John T. McCutcheon 1909

  • Here again were oxen, mules and asses, or great bucks such as we now know as eland or kudoo, carried in on rough litters of boughs to be disposed of by parties of savage huntsmen who had shot them with arrows or trapped them in pitfalls.

    Elissa Henry Rider Haggard 1890

  • The eland, which is closely allied to the American wapiti if not specifically the same animal, is still kept in the royal preserves of Prussia, to the number of four or five hundred individuals.

    Earth as Modified by Human Action, The~ Chapter 02 (historical) 1874

  • The eland, which is an inhabitant of the open country, is uniformly coloured, being sufficiently recognisable by its large size and distinctive form; but the Derbyan eland is a forest animal, and has a protectively striped coat.

    Darwinism (1889) Alfred Russel Wallace 1868

  • The eland is a magnificent animal, by far the largest of all the antelope tribe, exceeding a large ox in size.

    Forest & Frontiers 1867

  • Hunting the eland is a common pastime; and no craft is required to insure success, since these creatures are almost as tame as domestic cattle; so tame that the horseman usually rides into the middle of the drove, and, singling out the fattest bull, shoots him down without any difficulty.

    Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found A Book of Zoology for Boys Mayne Reid 1850

  • Large game animals such as eland are no longer wild in the Cedarberg, but their presence in rock art suggests they once grazed in the region.

    Belongings: Property, Family, and Identity in Colonial South Africa 2008

  • The vast herds of large mammals, such as eland (Taurotragus oryx) and sable (Hippotragus niger), that once roamed the foothills of this ecoregion are long gone.

    South Malawi montane forest-grassland mosaic 2008

  • "Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and with the semi-hollow bullet.

    King Solomon's Mines Henry Rider Haggard 1890

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