ankus
UK/ˈaŋ.kəs/
ankus noun: the hooked goad that is used in India to control elephants.
Noun
ankus (plural ankuses)
- The hooked goad that is used in India to control elephants.
- At last he found something really fascinating laid on the front of a howdah half buried in the coins. It was a three-foot ankus, or elephant-goad—something like a small boathook. The top was one round, shining ruby, and eight inches of the handle below it were studded with rough turquoises close...1895, Rudyard Kipling, The King's Ankus
- He reached for the ivory handle of his ankus and turned to the stripling.2007, Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road, Sceptre, published 2008, page 22
Forms of ankus
| plural | ankuses |
|---|---|
| alternative form | ankhus |
| alternative form | ankush |
| alternative form | ankusha |
Origin of ankus
From Hindi अंकुस (aṅkus)/अंकुश (aṅkuś), from Sanskrit अङ्कुश (aṅkuśa).
Questions about ankus
- What does ankus mean?
- Ankus means the hooked goad that is used in India to control elephants.
- What part of speech is ankus?
- Ankus is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ankus?
- Ankus is pronounced /ˈaŋ.kəs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of ankus?
- The plural of ankus is ankuses.
Words near ankus in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ankus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “ankus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ankus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.