Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A subarctic area of northern Eurasia and North America located just south of the tundra and covered largely with coniferous forests dominated by firs and spruces.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A subarctic zone of evergreen coniferous forests situated south of the tundras and north of the steppes in the Northern Hemisphere.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Russian taĭga, of Altaic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Russian тайга (tajgá), from South Siberian Turkic (Altai region, for example the Altay or Shor language), or alternatively Yakut тайга (tajga, "untraversable forest").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Good for Kird Apes.

    January 1, 2007

  • Another term for boreal forest, a subarctic biome characterized by conifers (mostly spruces), small-leaved deciduous trees (birch, willow, aspen), nutrient-poor soil, some permafrost, and relatively low precipitation which mostly comes as snow during the winter.

    November 12, 2007

  • Also the name taken by a trendy (but good) Vancouver manufacturer of outdoor wear.

    November 12, 2007

  • "At 68 degrees latitude, this is the taiga, a Russian word meaning "land of little sticks," the upper limit of the world's northern forests."

    —James Campbell, The Final Frontiersman (New York and London: Atria Books, 2004), 65

    September 17, 2008