tayra
/ˈtaɪ.ɹə/
tayra noun: a South American omnivore, Eira barbara, allied to the grison, with a long thick tail.
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Noun
tayra (plural tayras)
- 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.2004, David Rains Wallace, Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution, page 66
- A few tayras are known to live in areas of tall grass.
Tayras forage for food on the ground and also in the trees, where their long tail helps them to balance as they move through the branches.2006, Tom Jackson, Michael Chinery, The New Encyclopedia of American Animals, page 152
Forms of tayra
| plural | tayras |
|---|---|
| alternative form | taira |
Origin of tayra
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.)
Questions about tayra
- What does tayra mean?
- Tayra means a South American omnivore, Eira barbara, allied to the grison, with a long thick tail.
- What part of speech is tayra?
- Tayra is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tayra?
- Tayra is pronounced /ˈtaɪ.ɹə/.
- What is the plural of tayra?
- The plural of tayra is tayras.
Words near tayra in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tayra (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: “tayra.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tayra. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.