nilgai

American  

[nil-gahy] / ˈnɪl gaɪ /

Or nylghai,

noun

• nilgais,
  plural
• nilgai
  plural

1. a large, Indian antelope, Boselaphus tragocamelus, the male of which is bluish gray with small horns, the female tawny and hornless.

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nilgai British  

/ ˈnɪlɡɔː, ˈnɪlɡaɪ /

noun

1. a large Indian antelope, Boselaphus tragocamelus. The male is blue-grey with white markings and has small horns; the female is brownish and has no horns

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• nilgai
  plural
• nilgais
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of nilgai

First recorded in 1880–85, nilgai is from the Hindi word nīlgāy literally, blue cow

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nilgai nilgais

Scarier still was the walk to a market where she had to sort the family’s paperwork for a ration card, through a wooded area populated by nilgai deer, monkeys and python.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2016

An antelope, known in Hindi as nilgai, ambled ahead of us on the path; it had lost one of its horns, presumably in a neelgai version of a barroom brawl.

From New York Times ● Jan. 14, 2011

The Army first introduced camels to the area in 1856, and starting in the 1940s the locals began importing other exotic animals--ibex and zebras, nilgai antelope from Pakistan and barasingh deer from India.

From Time Magazine Archive

When the raibar saw the turn that things had taken he thought that he had better take advantage of it, so he asked for a good large nilgai.

From Folklore of the Santal Parganas by Cecil Henry Bompas

Among the 15 names of main septs of the Santāls, Besra, a hawk, Murmu nilgai, or stag, and Aind, eel, are also the names of Munda septs.

From The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell

Payag is also thought to have produced the wonderfully misty depiction of one of Jahan’s sons hunting nilgais, a kind of antelope, at twilight.

From New York Times ● Sep. 29, 2011

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