Ocelotl

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of wild cat native to the Americas, known for its distinctive spotted coat
2. A member of the leopardus genus, commonly referred to as the jaguarundi
3. This creature is often associated with various cultural symbols in Mesoamerican mythology and iconography

Etymology: The ocelot takes its name from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, in which "ocelotl" was the word for the jaguar (the big cat, not the smaller spotted one that now carries the name). The Spanish conquistadors and naturalists who encountered Mesoamerican fauna borrowed the term, and by the 1700s "ocelot" was being used in English for the smaller spotted cat of the Americas. Its earlier sense shows how travelers mapped unfamiliar animals onto the closest name they could find. The shift of meaning is the notable part: a word for one of the largest cats in the New World ended up attached to a considerably smaller animal. The likely reason is that the naturalists of the period used the Nahuatl name for a spotted feline they were describing, and the label stuck to the species that became standard in European zoology.

Synonyms: jaguarundi, margay, jaguar, puma, cougar