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babirusa

American  
[bab-uh-roo-suh, bah-buh-] / ˌbæb əˈru sə, ˌbɑ bə- /
Or babiroussa,

noun

  1. an East Indian swine, Babyrousa babyrussa, the male of which has upper canine teeth growing upward through the roof of the mouth and curving toward the eyes, and lower canine teeth growing upward outside the upper jaw.


babirusa British  
/ ˌbɑːbɪˈruːsə /

noun

  1. a wild pig, Babyrousa babyrussa , inhabiting marshy forests in Indonesia. It has an almost hairless wrinkled skin and enormous curved canine teeth

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of babirusa

1690–1700; < Malay, equivalent to babi pig + rusa deer

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.

In 2014, Dr. Aubert and his colleagues dated the age of a flowstone that covered a picture of a pig-like animal called a babirusa in a cave in Sulawesi.

From New York Times • Nov. 7, 2018

Features on animals such as the babirusa, the pignose frog and the flannel moth “puss” caterpillar are so silly and unwieldy that they could not have been designed with efficiency, logic or aesthetics in mind.

From Scientific American • Oct. 11, 2014

Next day we started with our friend into the neighbouring forest, in chase of the babirusa or pig-deer.

From In the Eastern Seas by Kingston, William Henry Giles

Besides the babirusa, herds of wild pigs of large size abound in the northern forests, and numerous jungle-fowl, hornbills, and great fruit-pigeons.

From In the Eastern Seas by Kingston, William Henry Giles

On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of lower teeth in some of the beaked whales.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various