Pangolin

//ˈpæŋɡəlɪn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of several long-tailed, scale-covered mammals of the family Manidae within the order Pholidota of tropical Africa and Asia.

    "Like many Sri Lankans, pangolins have big tongues, thick hides and small brains. They pick on ants, rats and anything smaller than them. They hide in terror when faced with bullies and get up to mischief when the lights are out. They are hundreds of thousands of years old and are plodding towards extinction."

  2. 2
    toothless mammal of southern Africa and Asia having a body covered with horny scales and a long snout for feeding on ants and termites wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
scaly anteaterafrican anteateranimalanteaterantelopearmadillo

Example

More examples

"The Ubuntu version of April 2012 has been nicknamed "Precise Pangolin"."

Etymology

Borrowed from Malay pengguling, from peng- (“denominative prefix”) + guling (“to roll”).

Related phrases

Chinese pangolinIndian pangolinPhilippine pangolinSunda pangolingiant pangolinground pangolinlong-tailed pangolinsea pangolintree pangolinscaly anteater

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