zebraとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

1600; borrowed from Italian zebra, from Portuguese zebra, zebro (“zebra”), from Old Galician-Portuguese enzebro, ezebra, azebra (“wild ass”), from earlier cebrario (882), ezebrario (897), from Vulgar Latin *eciferus, from Latin equiferus (“wild horse”) (Pliny), from equus (“horse”) + ferus (“wild”).(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

While the word was traditionally pronounced with a long vowel in the first syllable in standard English, during the twentieth century a vowel shift occurred in regions of England, with the shortening of the first vowel.^[1] This pronunciation is now used throughout the UK and most Commonwealth nations. The long-vowel pronunciation remains standard in Canadian and American English.

(referee): In reference to the black and white striped shirts they wear.

発音

• (英国発音, 通例) IPA^(key): /ˈzɛbɹə/
  • ハイフネーション: zeb‧ra
• (カナダ用法, 米国発音 かつ traditional British English) IPA^(key): /ˈziːbɹə/
  • ハイフネーション: ze‧bra
• 韻: (英国発音, 通例) -ɛbɹə, -iːbɹə

名詞

zebra (複数形 zebra または zebras)

1. Any of three species of subgenus Hippotigris: E. grevyi, E. quagga, or E. zebra, all with black and white stripes and native to Africa.
2. (sports, slang) A referee.
3. (medicine, slang) An unlikely diagnosis, especially for symptoms probably caused by a common ailment. (Originates in the advice often given to medical students: "when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras".)
4. (vulgar, derogatory, slang, ethnic slur) A biracial person, specifically one born to a member of the Sub-Saharan African race and a Caucasian.
5. (informal) A fish, the zebra cichlid.
6. Any of various papilionid butterflies of the subgenus Paranticopsis of the genus Graphium, having black and white markings.
7. A zebra crossing.
   • 2010, Mick Herron, Slow Horses, page 247:

     On his way home he'd picked up two economy-sized bags of tortilla chips, and had dropped both when a twat in a Lexus honked him on a zebra . . .

使用する際の注意点

• (biracial person): The term zebra, as used in its pejorative sense, was popularized on the television situation comedy The Jeffersons. The term was used by the series protagonist, George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), to express disdain for his daughter-in-law, Jenny Willis Jefferson, whose father was white and mother was black.

下位語

• (animal of genus Equus): Burchell's zebra, Grevy's zebra, quagga, plains zebra, mountain zebra
• (unlikely diagnosis): fascinoma

派生語

参考

• quagga
• Equus burchelli, Equus grevyi, Equus quagga, Equus zebra

参照

アナグラム

• Zaber, braze

Latin

発音

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈze.bra/, [ˈd̪͡z̪ɛbrä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ze.bra/, [ˈd̪͡z̪ɛːbrä]

名詞

zebra f (genitive zebrae); first declension

1. (New Latin) zebra (Equus zebra)

語形変化

First-declension noun.