jaguar
Americannoun
-
jaguars
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of jaguar
1595–1605; < Portuguese < Tupi jaguara
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How does jaguar compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
One of your pet cat's many wild relatives is the jaguar, a large, spotted animal that's found in North, Central, and South America. The jaguar is so fast that a famously fancy car is named after it. The jaguar, third-largest of all the cats, looks like a bigger, stronger version of a leopard. They were once common in the western part of the United States, but have nearly been eradicated there and verge on being endangered worldwide. The word jaguar is Portuguese in origin, from the Tupi jaguara, which is a general term for any large, predatory animal.
Vocabulary lists containing jaguar
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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Others take a more menacing tone, like a jaguar facing off with a dog in a snowy backyard.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2026
Catwoman appears here as a jaguar warrior, since there were no domestic cats at that point in history in the Americas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025
Rico, who lives with Tina, a female two-toed sloth, in the zoo's jaguar house, has been regularly monitored since the surgery.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2025
The animals, he remarked, “were very tame,” which he attributed to “the jaguar having been banished for some years.”
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2024
A jaguar was a long shot, but Tam Lin had seen them.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
BFA-related compounds in urine and renal lipid droplets were detected in several felid species, including lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, lynxes, and the Iriomote cat.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026
There, they don’t have to worry about their natural predators, like jaguars and anacondas.
From Slate ● May 27, 2026
“She was born under a full moon in the arms of mother nature. The jaguars taught her to run, the birds to fly,” her intro video intoned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
With them go their predators, the jaguars, ocelots and—yes—anacondas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
Some, such as jaguars and tapirs, had migrated to higher ground during the rainy season, but there were still many animals all around them.
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
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