Definitions

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

  • noun A bear (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) of the mountains of central China, having woolly fur with distinctive black and white markings.
  • noun An arboreal raccoonlike mammal (Ailurus fulgens) of northeast Asia, having reddish fur, white face markings, and a long ringed tail.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A carnivorous quadruped, Ælurus fulgens, of the arctoid series of fissiped Feræ, representing a family Æluridæ; the wah, chitwah, or red bear-cat.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A small Asiatic mammal (Ailurus fulgens) having fine soft fur, which inhabits the mountains of Northern India. It was once thought to be related to the bears, but is now believed to be more closely related to raccoons. It has reddish-brown fur on the back and sides, and black fur on the legs and underside. Called also the lesser panda.
  • noun The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), a bearlike black-and white mammal now found wild only in the central forests of China, which lives mainly on on bamboo. It is an endangered species, and is a popular attraction in the few zoos which have bveen able to obtain specimens.

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

  • noun large black-and-white herbivorous mammal of bamboo forests of China and Tibet; in some classifications considered a member of the bear family or of a separate family Ailuropodidae
  • noun reddish-brown Old World raccoon-like carnivore; in some classifications considered unrelated to the giant pandas

Etymologies

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

[French, perhaps of Nepalese origin .]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French panda, apparently from a local language of Nepal but not traced in Nepali.

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Examples

  • Nobody else Asian in the main cast there, the title panda will be Jack Black and "Shifu" will be played by Dustin Hoffman.

    Archive 2007-10-01 2007

  • Nobody else Asian in the main cast there, the title panda will be Jack Black and "Shifu" will be played by Dustin Hoffman.

    On Asian Stereotypes in American Film 2007

  • For example, Youtube is an adult place, but I don't expect to search for "panda" and bring up videos of people having sex in panda suits.

    zornhau: Writer's Block: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here zornhau 2010

  • The word panda means bamboo-eater in Nepalese, so it’s no surprise to learn that these raccoon-sized critters love to munch on tasty bamboo leaves.

    ZooBorns Andrew Bleiman 2010

  • The word panda means bamboo-eater in Nepalese, so it’s no surprise to learn that these raccoon-sized critters love to munch on tasty bamboo leaves.

    ZooBorns Andrew Bleiman 2010

  • The word panda means bamboo-eater in Nepalese, so it’s no surprise to learn that these raccoon-sized critters love to munch on tasty bamboo leaves.

    ZooBorns Andrew Bleiman 2010

  • The word panda means bamboo-eater in Nepalese, so it’s no surprise to learn that these raccoon-sized critters love to munch on tasty bamboo leaves.

    ZooBorns Andrew Bleiman 2010

  • And this panda is sitting in chairs by [New Yorker cartoonist artist] Saul Steinberg.

    Marina Cashdan: The Rebirth of Rob Pruitt Marina Cashdan 2010

  • New York Magazine's story about a sad panda is kind of touching.

    Sad Panda: The Story of an Obsession The Nag 2009

  • Twenty years on, the nick is a retirement home and the three villages are now covered by a single panda from the ‘big’ town twelve miles away.

    The Revolving Door System. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • "I think that it's really easy to just stick [raccoons] as 'trash pandas,' but they do have this complex shadow world that happens parallel to ours, with their own social structures and interests that we influence, but are completely independent," said Scott-Dutcher.

    Finding a Wildlife Refuge in the Heart of New York City Allison C. Meier 2018

Comments

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  • Origins.

    August 3, 2009