cougar
Americannoun
plural
cougars,plural
cougar-
Also called mountain lion, panther, puma. a large, tawny cat, Felis concolor, of North and South America: now greatly reduced in number and endangered in some areas.
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Informal. an older woman who seeks sexual relationships with much younger men.
He's in his twenties, but he prefers cougars in their forties and fifties to young women his own age.
noun
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another name for puma
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slang a woman in her 30s or 40s who actively pursues casual sexual relationships with young men
Etymology
Origin of cougar
First recorded in 1765–75; from French couguar, from New Latin cuguacu ara, cuguacuarana, apparently a misrepresentation of either Guarani guaçu ara or Portuguese çuçuarana, suçuarana (from Tupi susuarana )
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.
And a cougar attacks in a very different way than a bear does.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 6, 2026
The research comes as wolf and cougar territories increasingly overlap across the western United States.
From Science Daily • Mar. 3, 2026
To better understand how evolution shaped these sounds, the researchers compared domestic cat meows with those of five wild cat species: African wildcat, European wildcat, jungle cat, cheetah, and cougar.
From Science Daily • Feb. 11, 2026
On the night of Aug. 10, Yasmin Lopez’s father was walking their pit bull, Gigi, in Oakridge Mobile Home Park when the cougar pounced on the dog.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 24, 2024
Inside she placed her couch, cougar skins, an Axminister carpet, rocking chairs, and assorted other artifacts of domestic life.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
