Hippotaur
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A creature that is half bull and half horse.
"Cnemon is surprised even by the shadow of a crocodile, while Nausicles smiles at a foolish bird-catcher sent to catch the phoenicopter; or the giraffe terrifies the Ethiopians at a point in the plot when surprise is least expected - before Theagenes improvises a hippotaur to deal with it. This is again the world of Herodotus-at-the-Zoo."
- 2 A taur with the lower body of a hippopotamus. slang
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Cnemon is surprised even by the shadow of a crocodile, while Nausicles smiles at a foolish bird-catcher sent to catch the phoenicopter; or the giraffe terrifies the Ethiopians at a point in the plot when surprise is least expected - before Theagenes improvises a hippotaur to deal with it. This is again the world of Herodotus-at-the-Zoo."
Etymology
From Latin hippotaurus, from Ancient Greek ἱππόταυρος (hippótauros), from ἵππος (híppos, “horse”) (English hippo-) + ταῦρος (taûros, “bull”).
From hippo + -taur.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.