Animals, plants & weatherMyths & disputes

yeti

Yeti comes through Sherpa from Tibetan g.ya' dred, roughly 'rock-place bear'; English met it in the 1930s, after the 'Abominable Snowman' of 1921 had already made headlines. 1950s Everest expeditions, a Soviet yeti hunt and Tintin in Tibet then spread it worldwide.

Weakest linkProbable

The story you may have heard

That 'Abominable Snowman' translates the local name. It comes from a 1921 newspaper story in which journalist Henry Newman mistranslated the porters' word metoh as 'filthy', and then 'abominable'.

The road to English

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1900Tibetan

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

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