Sloughi

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A slender, long-legged sighthound breed originating in North Africa, bred for hunting and valued for its speed and endurance
2. A swift hunting dog of the greyhound type native to the deserts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
3. An elegant, lean sighthound from the Maghreb region, traditionally used to chase gazelles and hares over open terrain

Etymology: The sloughi is a North African sighthound, and its name travelled into English by way of French. The French "sloughi" came from a dialect form of Arabic "slūgī", meaning greyhound, which itself derived from the Arabic "salūqiyy", a word for a greyhound of the Arab tradition. The name thus carries the same Arabic root as the more familiar saluki, and the two English words are doublets: one arrived through French, the other more directly from Arabic-speaking regions. The sense has stayed remarkably steady. Where many borrowed words drift far from their origin, this one still names the same kind of lean, swift dog that the Arabic word described, with no shift from the original meaning beyond its move from Arabic into European languages.