panda
Pluralpandas
- 1Ellipsis of giant panda.
The panda spends most of its waking hours eating bamboo.
Conservationists released several pandas into a protected forest reserve.
Note
The short form that has taken over the bare word. In everyday speech panda now means this black-and-white bear, which is why the red panda usually needs its qualifier. It also works attributively, in front of another noun. In the US and Canada the animal is often called a panda bear, a fitting name because it belongs to the bear family.
The zoo is building a new panda enclosure.
Visitors queued for hours to see the panda cubs.
- 2A small raccoon-like animal of northeast Asia, with reddish fur and a long, ringed tail.
A panda picked its way along the mossy branch, its rust-colored tail hanging down.
The travelers reported seeing several pandas in the bamboo thickets of the foothills.
Note
The animal that first carried the name: French panda, probably from the second half of nigálya-pónya, a local name that the naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson recorded in Nepal and Sikkim. Used alone, panda for this animal is now archaic. Most readers will picture the giant panda instead, so write red panda or lesser panda. Older names such as cat bear and bear cat are obsolete.
- 3Short form of panda car.
A panda was parked at the corner, the officer inside watching the crowd leave the match.
The dispatcher sent a couple of pandas to the scene of the break-in.
Note
British police slang, clipped from panda car. The name comes from the paintwork: a broad white stripe around the middle of a dark body, originally black, like the giant panda's two-tone coat on wheels. That livery is now historical, but panda car can still mean any police car in the UK and Ireland. Race Today, edited by Darcus Howe, lists "at least two pandas" in 1975.
- 4USPAHN-duh/ˈpɑndə/UKPUN-duh/ˈpʌndə/A brahmin whose inherited office involves overseeing a particular temple or ghat and who is considered knowledgeable about genealogy and ritual.
The panda unrolled a long scroll and traced the visitor's ancestry back five generations.
Generations of pandas had guided mourners through the rites at the temple.
Note
A separate word that only shares the spelling. It comes from Hindi paṇḍā and Punjabi pāṇḍā, from Sanskrit paṇḍita, "learned", which makes it a doublet of pundit and no relation to the animal. The office ties a priest to families as well as to a place. Prakash Tandon's Punjabi Century (1961) describes his family's own panda at Hardwar, who kept the family records and was succeeded by his son.
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Origins
Borrowed from French panda, of unclear ultimate origin. It probably comes from the second element of nigálya-pónya, a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim by naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson, possibly combining a Nepali word relating to a kind of bamboo with a regional Tibetan name for the animal.
Borrowed from Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita, "learned, wise; scholar"). It is a doublet of pundit.