orangutan
either of two species of long-armed, arboreal great ape, the only extant members of the subfamily Ponginae, inhabiting Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatra (P. abelii): both species, including all three of the Bornean subspecies, are endangered.
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Origin of orangutan
1- Also called o·rang [aw-rang, oh-rang] /ɔˈræŋ, oʊˈræŋ/ .
- Also o·rang-u·tan; o·rang·u·tang or o·rang-ou·tang [aw-rang-oo-tang, oh-rang-, uh-rang-] /ɔˈræŋ ʊˌtæŋ, oʊˈræŋ-, əˈræŋ-/ .
Words Nearby orangutan
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use orangutan in a sentence
Someone had planted a modern human skull alongside an orangutan jaw with its teeth filed down.
The ultimate genealogical search hunts for our earliest ancestors | Erin Wayman | December 2, 2021 | Science News For StudentsToday, orangutans are found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
Ancient giant orangutans evolved smaller bodies surprisingly slowly | Bruce Bower | December 1, 2021 | Science NewsThat same year, a court in Argentina reportedly ruled in a habeas corpus case that an orangutan named Sandra could be freed from a Buenos Aires zoo and moved to a sanctuary.
In a Legal First, a Court Will Decide if an Elephant Deserves the Same Rights as a Person | Melissa Chan | October 21, 2021 | TimeLast week, all seven of the orangutans at the National Zoo got their coronavirus shots, the zoo said.
Our animal kin get the Covid jab at the National Zoo, zoo says | Martin Weil | October 17, 2021 | Washington PostIn the early 1990s, Kinari Webb took a year off college to join a Harvard researcher studying orangutans in Indonesia’s rainforested Gunung Palung National Park.
The fight to stop the next pandemic starts in the jungles of Borneo | Brian Barth | December 2, 2020 | Popular-Science
Some dude slaps an orangutan around a little,” says Rick, “and they ask for $800,000,000.
But it is unlikely to make that transition itself, anymore than you could turn yourself into your neighbor, or an orangutan.
There was an orangutan sanctuary there, and I heard that they were taking volunteers.
Audrey Tautou on ‘Amélie,’ Her New Film ‘Delicacy,’ & More | Marlow Stern | March 18, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe exhibit was intended as an example of the "missing link" between the orangutan and white man.
Sammy the orangutan has watched himself in Dunston Checks In, and he seemed to be interested.
Of the great man-like apes (gorilla, orangutan, and chimpanzee).
Dactylography | Henry FauldsHe leaped from left to right, and back again, like an orangutan stirred to frenzied anger.
Captain Pott's Minister | Francis L. CooperExactly a week after I had caught this interesting little animal, I succeeded in shooting a full-grown male orangutan.
The Malay Archipelago | Alfred Russell WallaceHe looks as much like a Borneo orangutan as any human being I ever saw.
Flash-lights from the Seven Seas | William L. Stidger
British Dictionary definitions for orang-utan
orang-utang (ɔːˌræŋuːˈtæŋ, ˌɔːræŋˈuːtæŋ)
/ (ɔːˌræŋuːˈtæn, ˌɔːræŋˈuːtæn) /
a large anthropoid ape, Pongo pygmaeus, of the forests of Sumatra and Borneo, with shaggy reddish-brown hair and strong arms: Sometimes shortened to: orang
Origin of orang-utan
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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