paca
Americannoun
-
pacas
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of paca
1650–60; < Spanish or Portuguese < Tupi
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 shelters were also occupied by the living, who made tools and cooked, evidenced by the buried bones of armadillos, deer and a type of rodent called a paca, Dr. Prufer said.
From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2022
Like others in his Miskito community, his family caught fish and crayfish from the rivers, hunted deer and large guinea pig-like paca, and used trees harvested from the forest to build their homes and boats.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2020
They’ve recorded a clever form of weasel called a tayra and lots of crazy rodents like the agouti and the mountain paca.
From New York Times ● Nov. 18, 2011
Our golden agouti and spotted paca got along very well, contentedly huddling together and sleeping against each other until the first was stolen.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
John had fortunately killed a paca in the morning, and Maria had dressed part of it for supper.
From On the Banks of the Amazon by William H. C. Groome
Fish such as wolf fish, peacock bass, and South American lungfish were especially common, accompanied by reptiles including caimans and turtles, and mammals such as capybaras, pacas, and armadillos.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 30, 2025
The larger agouti, or mara, is sometimes classed between the agoutis and the pacas.
From The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America by William Henry Giles Kingston
They dwell in small troops or families, of six or seven individuals each, and their food is furnished by the pacas, agoutis, and other small rodent animals of tropical America.
From Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found A Book of Zoology for Boys by William Harvey
They believe that he has subterranean campos and hunting grounds in the forest, well stocked with pacas and deer.
From The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates
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.
