Tayra

//ˈtaɪ.ɹə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A South American omnivore, Eira barbara, allied to the grison, with a long thick tail.

    "Cope considered it partly arboreal, as tayras are, and possibly omnivorous as well as herbivorous, yet he thought he saw how it could have evolved into hulking Coryphodon in a relatively short time."

  2. 2
    long-tailed arboreal mustelid of Central America and South America wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
eira barbarataira

Example

More examples

"Cope considered it partly arboreal, as tayras are, and possibly omnivorous as well as herbivorous, yet he thought he saw how it could have evolved into hulking Coryphodon in a relatively short time."

Etymology

Borrowed, via Spanish tayra or Portuguese taira, from Old Tupi eîrara. (Compare Portuguese irara, Spanish irará, eirá, connected to Paraguayan Guarani eíra (“honey”), a food the animal is fond of, whence also Portuguese papa-mel, another vernacular name.)

Related phrases

eira barbarasouth america

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