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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

otter.

An aquatic or marine carnivorous mammal in the subfamily Lutrinae.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɒtə/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈɔtə/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɔtəɾ/Scotland/ˈɑtɚ/General-American
  1. An aquatic or marine carnivorous mammal in the subfamily Lutrinae.

    countable · uncountable
  2. An aquatic or marine carnivorous mammal in the subfamily Lutrinae. The flesh or fur of this animal

    uncountable
  3. A hairy man with a slender physique, in contrast with a bear, who is more thickset.

    countable · slang · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English oter, otir, otur, otyre, from Old English otor, from Proto-West Germanic *otr, from Proto-Germanic *utraz, from Proto-Indo-European *udrós (“aquatic, water-animal”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“water”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Otter, Dutch otter, German Otter, Swedish utter, Norwegian oter, Icelandic otur, Sanskrit उद्र (udrá), Russian вы́дра (výdra), and Ancient Greek ὕδρα (húdra, “water snake”). Doublet of Hydra and hydra. More etymology under English water.

noun/ˈɒtə/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈɔtə/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɔtəɾ/Scotland/ˈɑtɚ/General-American
  1. annatto (dye)

    obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Corruption of annotto.

noun/ˈɒtə/Northern-England, Received-Pronunciation, Wales/ˈɔtə/British, Southern, Standard/ˈɔtəɾ/Scotland/ˈɑtɚ/General-American
  1. Archaic form of attar.

    alt-of · archaic · uncountable
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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.