Agouti

//əˈɡuːti// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A rodent of the genus Dasyprocta, similar in appearance to a guinea pig but having longer legs, mainly native to Central and South America.

    "Akin looked around to be certain he was unobserved, then went out to watch the agouti. He had not seen one close up before. Lilith claimed they looked like a cross between deer and rats."

  2. 2
    agile long-legged rabbit-sized rodent of Central America and South America and the West Indies; valued as food wordnet
  3. 3
    A fur containing a pattern of pigmentation in which individual hairs have several bands of light and dark pigment with black tips; any of several genes responsible for this pigmentation.

Synonyms

All synonyms
dasyprocta aguti

Example

More examples

"Akin looked around to be certain he was unobserved, then went out to watch the agouti. He had not seen one close up before. Lilith claimed they looked like a cross between deer and rats."

Etymology

From French agouti, from Old Tupi akuti. The name of the acouchi is probably from the same source.

Related phrases

Orinoco agoutiguinea pig

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.