okapi
Americannoun
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okapis,
plural
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okapi
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of okapi
1900; < Bambuba (Mvu’ba), a Central Sudanic language of the NE Democratic Republic of the Congo (or < a related Pygmy dial.), according to English Africanist Harry Johnston (1858–1927), author of the first zoological descriptions of the animal
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.
See Examples For:
The "incredibly special" birth of an okapi will help to reveal "one of the least known and understood species on the planet", a keeper has said.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2023
The okapi is the closest living relative of which African animal?
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2023
In the past few years Chang Liu and his colleagues at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, have published high-quality genomes of giraffe, okapi and other related animals.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 19, 2023
Discokeryx likely resembled an okapi, a forest-dwelling cousin of modern giraffes.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2022
Then, in the 1920s, when elsewhere in the world the menfolk took a break between wars to perfect the airplane and the automobile, a white man finally did set eyes on the okapi.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
In the rain forest, okapis were able to survive and thrive with perfectly fine albeit unspectacular necks.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 19, 2023
Rosmarie Ruf, of Gilman International Conservation, estimated that in the 1990s there were 5,000 okapis in the rainforest.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2013
The zoo had been established 25 years ago to house a small number of the timid and endangered okapis that are the familiar image of Congo's diverse fauna.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2013
They are notoriously skittish, so adept at avoiding other animals in the wild — including other okapis — that Western researchers didn’t even document their existence until 1901.
From New York Times ● Nov. 7, 2011
“If we knew everything about where okapis exist, it probably would be endangered,” said Mr. Vosper.
From New York Times ● Nov. 7, 2011
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
