Caribou

//ˈkæɹəbu// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of several North American subspecies Rangifer tarandus of the reindeer.
  2. 2
    Arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called ‘reindeer’ in Eurasia and ‘caribou’ in North America wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A rural area of Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
  2. 2
    A census-designated place in Plumas County, California, United States.
  3. 3
    A ghost town in Boulder County, Colorado.
  4. 4
    A city in Aroostook County, Maine.
  5. 5
    An unincorporated community in Kittson County, Minnesota.
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    An unincorporated community in Kittson County, Minnesota.

Synonyms

All synonyms
animalantelopearmadillobatbuckcamel

Example

More examples

"In the past few years, warmer temperatures in summer have allowed mosquito populations to explode. So the caribou spend a lot more energy swatting away the mosquitoes. All this swatting leaves the caribou less energy to find food and prepare for the next long winter."

Etymology

Borrowed from Canadian French caribou, from Mi'kmaq qalipu (“caribou”) (compare qalipi (“to shovel snow”)), from Proto-Algonquian *maka·lipowa (“caribou; it shovels snow”).

Related phrases

Caribou CountyDawson's caribouEast Greenland caribouGrant's caribouLabrador caribouNewfoundland caribouOsborn's caribouPeary caribouQueen Charlotte Islands cariboubarren-ground caribouboreal woodland caribouforest caribou

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