giraffe
Pluralgiraffes, giraffe
- 1A long-necked, long-legged African ruminant of the genus Giraffa, the tallest living animal, with spotted yellowish fur and short skin-covered horns.
A giraffe can reach leaves far above the heads of other grazing animals.
On the savannah, giraffes browse acacia trees that shorter herbivores cannot touch.
Note
A zoologist would correct one word in the usual description: the short, skin-covered knobs on the head are ossicones, not true horns. The animal belongs among the even-toed ungulates and, as a ruminant, chews the cud. Its name goes back to Persian zurnāpā, whose second element, pā, is the word for "foot". Camelopard is a synonym, and a group of giraffes is called a tower.
- 2A person who stands much taller than those around them.
Standing head and shoulders above his teammates, he was the giraffe of the squad.
She felt like a giraffe whenever she stood among her shorter coworkers.
Similarbeanpole
Note
A figure of speech that lives mostly online, and even there it is uncommon. It applies the image of the long-necked animal to a person. Treat it as a playful nickname rather than a neutral description, since calling someone a giraffe points at their height with a grin.
- 3A tall unicycle whose saddle sits high above a single large wheel, driven by a chain that links the pedals to the wheel.
She mounted the giraffe with help from two spotters before riding across the ring.
Parade performers favor the giraffe because its height keeps them visible above the crowd.
Note
A clipping of "giraffe unicycle" that borrows its name from the long-necked animal for one reason, height, much as the word for a tall person does. In the full phrase, giraffe works like an adjective in front of unicycle. Standing alone, it is the noun itself: you ride a giraffe, and you are not riding a giraffe unicycle-style.
- 4A laugh, used as playful slang, often in the phrase "having a giraffe."
We had such a giraffe watching the blooper reel after dinner.
His impression of the boss gave everyone a giraffe.
Similarlaugh
Note
Cockney rhyming slang at work: giraffe stands for laugh simply because the two words rhyme. Bubble bath came to mean the same thing by the same route, and so did plain bubble once the rhyming half dropped away. Its natural home is the incredulous question "Are you having a giraffe?", meaning "are you joking?". It belongs to banter and never to a sentence meant to be taken seriously.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Middle French giraffe, which came from Italian giraffa, ultimately from Arabic zurāfa (with older forms traced through Syriac and Persian). It replaced the earlier English word camelopard.