Word.ws English Dictionary

olitiau

olitiau noun: a gigantic cryptid of Central Africa, said to resemble a bat or flying reptile.

Noun

olitiau

  1. A gigantic cryptid of Central Africa, said to resemble a bat or flying reptile.
    • "What kind of a bat is it," I asked, "that has wings like this (opening my arms) and is all black?" "Olitiau!" somebody almost screamed, and there was a hurried conference in the Assumbo tongue.1943, Clifton Fadiman, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Van Doren, The Three Readers
    • ...the kongamato like the olitiau is in the habit of diving at men crossing its territory — perhaps trying to drive them away...1958, Bernard Heuvelmans, On the tracks of unknown animals

Examples of olitiau in a sentence

  • As large as a huge eagle, local tribesmen called it an Olitiau.1998, Robert Nicholson, Great Mysteries:
  • Several authorities have boldly attempted to equate the olitiau with a pterodactyl, in preference to a giant bat.2003, Karl Shuker, The beasts that hide from man: seeking the world's last undiscovered animals:
  • Known locally as the olitiau, the creature that buzzed Dr.2006, E. Randall Floyd, The world's 100 greatest mysteries:

Origin of olitiau

Probably a fusion of the Ipulo words ole and ntya.

Questions about olitiau

What does olitiau mean?
Olitiau means a gigantic cryptid of Central Africa, said to resemble a bat or flying reptile.
How do you use olitiau in a sentence?
As large as a huge eagle, local tribesmen called it an Olitiau.
What part of speech is olitiau?
Olitiau is a noun.

Words near olitiau in the dictionary

  1. olistostromal
  2. olistostrome
  3. olistostromes
  4. olistostromic
  5. OLith.
  6. olitiau
  7. olitories
  8. olitorin
  9. olitoriside
  10. olitoriusin
  11. olitory

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: olitiau (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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