# panda

Pronunciation: say "PAN-duh" /ˈpændə/

## Noun

1. Ellipsis of giant panda. *(colloquial)* — Ellipsis of giant panda (“Ailuropoda melanoleuca”).
   - Simple: Ellipsis of giant panda. A short way of saying giant panda.
   - _The panda spends most of its waking hours eating bamboo._
   - _Conservationists released several pandas into a protected forest reserve._
3. Short form of panda car. *(colloquial, British, Ireland, UK)* — Ellipsis of panda car (“a black-and-white police car”).
   - Simple: Short form of panda car. Use it in British English for a black-and-white police 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._
4. A brahmin whose inherited office involves overseeing a particular temple or ghat and who is considered knowledgeable about genealogy and ritual. (pronounced: US say "PAHN-duh" /ˈpɑndə/; UK say "PUN-duh" /ˈpʌndə/)
   - Simple: A Hindu priest who cares for a temple or riverside holy place and knows local family histories and rituals.
   - _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._

## Noun

2. A small raccoon-like animal of northeast Asia, with reddish fur and a long, ringed tail. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A small animal like a raccoon, from northeast Asia, with red fur and a long striped 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._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3** — 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.
**Meaning 4** — Borrowed from Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita, "learned, wise; scholar"). It is a doublet of pundit.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/panda (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).