Cariboo

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mountainous and plateau region in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, known for its gold rush history and ranching country
2. An area of central British Columbia in western Canada, covering high plateaus and mountain ranges with a past tied to gold mining
3. A historic interior district of British Columbia, Canada, marked by rugged mountains, grasslands and the legacy of the 1860s gold rush

Etymology: The spelling "cariboo" is simply an older form of "caribou", the name of the North American reindeer. English took the word from Canadian French "caribou", which in turn came from the Mi'kmaq word "qalipu". That Mi'kmaq word is linked to "qalipi", meaning "to shovel snow", and its distant ancestor in Proto-Algonquian, the reconstructed common ancestor of the Algonquian languages, was "*maka·lipowa", literally "it shovels snow". The name refers to the animal's habit of pawing through snow to reach food. The word thus records a close observation of animal behaviour, passed through several languages before reaching English. Its older spelling "cariboo" survives mainly in historical writing and in place names, where it has long been used in the same sense.