A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1190 entries
capybara
The capybara is the largest rodent alive, a barrel-bodied, blunt-faced grazer of South American wetlands that stands knee-high and can weigh 140 pounds. It is semi-aquatic, with partly webbed feet and with eyes, ears, and nostrils set high on the head so that it can float almost entirely submerged. It lives in groups and feeds on short grass and water plants.
Etymology
The word came into Portuguese and Spanish from Tupi, a language of coastal Brazil, and into English from them. The Tupi is usually read as eater of slender leaves. The gloss that gets repeated everywhere, master of the grasses, is not well supported. The scientific name doubles back on itself in a way nobody has bothered to fix: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris says water hog twice, both times in Greek.
Notes
The Catholic Church in colonial South America classified capybaras as fish for the purposes of Lenten fasting, on the grounds that they lived in water. Their teeth grow continuously and they graze like small horses, which is why they turn up on lawns and golf courses in parts of Argentina and Brazil.