Thar

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A wild goat with a shaggy coat and curved horns, native to the steep mountains of the Himalayas
2. A mountain-dwelling wild goat of the Himalayan region, known for its sure-footed climbing on rocky slopes
3. A shaggy, horned wild goat living on the rugged high ranges of the Himalayas and nearby mountain areas

Etymology: The spelling "thar" is not a separate word at all but a nonstandard form of "there", and the sound it records has been in the language for a very long time. Its ancestor, Old English "þēr" and its variants, meant "there" or "at that place", and it was built from the demonstrative base "to-", the same root behind "that" and "the", with an old adverbial ending added on. In the Middle English period the form "thar" already appeared alongside "there", "ther" and "thare", so the spelling is a survivor from a time when English spellings varied freely. The word's relatives are spread across the North Sea and Baltic region. Dutch "daar", German "da" and "dar-", Swedish "där", Danish and Norwegian "der", and West Frisian "dêr" all carry the same meaning, and Scots has its own "thar" and "thair". The shared pattern shows that this small pointing word was rooted in the Germanic languages long before English was written down.

Synonyms: tahr