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meerkat.

Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmɪəkat/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɪəɹkæt/General-American
  1. Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs.

Where this word comes from

From Afrikaans meerkat, transferred use of Dutch meerkat (“guenon [monkey]”), from Middle Dutch meercatte (literally “sea cat”), compare English mercat. Sometimes suggested to be influenced by or derived from an Indian source; compare Hindi मर्कट (markaṭ, “ape, monkey”) and Sanskrit मर्कट (markaṭa). Note however Old High German merikazza, so any influence from Indo-Aryan would have to be exceptionally early.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.