Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A ruminant mammal (Okapia johnstoni) of the central African rainforest, having a reddish-brown body, whitish-gray cheeks, horizontal whitish stripes on the legs and hindquarters, and short horns in the male. The okapi is closely related to the giraffe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A member of the giraffe family, discovered by Sir Harry Johnston, in 1902, in the forest region near Lake Albert, Africa.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A peculiar mammal (
Okapia johnstoni ) closely related to the giraffe, discovered in the deep forests of Belgian Congo in 1900. It is smaller than an ox, and somewhat like a giraffe, except that the neck is much shorter. Like the giraffe, it has no dewclaws. There is a small prominence on each frontal bone of the male. The color of the body is chiefly reddish chestnut, the cheeks are yellowish white, and the fore and hind legs above the knees and the haunches are striped with purplish black and cream color.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A large
ruminant mammal , Okapia johnstoni, found in therainforests of theCongo , related to thegiraffe , but with a much shorter neck, a reddish brown coat andzebra -like stripes on itshindquarters .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun similar to the giraffe but smaller with much shorter neck and stripe on the legs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word okapi.
Examples
-
The tongue of an okapi is long enough for the animal to wash its eyelids and clean its ears.
-
The okapi is a relatively unknown animal which is closely related to the giraffe.
-
[...] okapi is a relatively unknown animal which is closely related to the giraffe.
-
Although she has 8 billion exotic stuffed animals (my mom volunteers at the zoo so she is our biggest source — for example we have an okapi, which is an obscure African animal, closely related to the giraffe, that I for one had never even heard of until recently), her monkey was her first love.
The Sugar Must Come Before The Eggs: Monkey Cupcakes! Laura 2008
-
Although she has 8 billion exotic stuffed animals (my mom volunteers at the zoo so she is our biggest source — for example we have an okapi, which is an obscure African animal, closely related to the giraffe, that I for one had never even heard of until recently), her monkey was her first love.
Archive 2008-06-01 Laura 2008
-
Besides being a bit of a weird-looking dude, the okapi is the only animal in the world that can clean its ears with its tongue.
-
CAFFERTY: The okapi is a relative of the giraffe, can be found in the nature of the rain forests in central Africa.
-
This is a new animal called the okapi, only discovered during the last fifty years in the dense forests of Africa, and its skin was stuffed and set up and is now here.
-
Does Daddy know that the okapi is a relative of the giraffe even though it looks much more like a horse or zebra?
BBC News - Home 2011
-
The Zoological Society is running a project in Congo aimed at preserving the okapi, which is often hunted for its skin.
chained_bear commented on the word okapi
Usage on Vu Quang ox.
September 22, 2008