Animals, plants & weather

cheetah

The cheetah is the 'spotted one': Hindi cītā goes back to Sanskrit citra 'bright, speckled', and English took it from India, where Mughal emperors trained cheetahs for hunting. Hunted out of India by 1952, cheetahs were brought back from Africa in 2022.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Hindi to Urdu

From Sanskrit to Bengali

From English to Japanese

From English to Indian English

500 CESanskrit

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

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