rhinocerotes

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹaɪˈnɒ.sə.ɹəʊts/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹaɪˈnɑː.sə.ɹoʊts/
• Hyphenation: rhi‧no‧ce‧rotes

Etymology 1

From Latin rhīnocerōtēs.

Noun

rhinocerotes

1. (now rare) plural of rhinoceros

   Synonyms: (nonstandard) rhinoceri, (nonstandard) rhinoceroi, rhinoceros, rhinoceroses, (uncommon) rhinocerosses

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “Speculations”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 114:

     Wandering about among the trees or crouching in the long and feathered grass were all varieties of game, from rhinocerotes down.

   • 1992, Victor Arwas, Art Deco Sculpture, Academy Editions, →ISBN, page 19:

     A vast number of lions were poisoned by contaminating the carcasses of their prey with toxic cattle dip; a population of at least a hundred rhinocerotes was attacked with spears, leaving a single one alive; hundreds of wildebeest and zebras have been found rotting.

   • 1993, Social Scientist, page 35:

     Another seal from Mohenjodaro shows us the male God horned and three faced sitting in yogic posture and still another seal gives his representations as surrounded by beasts, the elephant, the tiger, the rhinocerotes and the buffalo with a couple of deer at his feet.

   • 2008, Yvan Nadeau, Erotica for Caesar Augustus: A Study of the Love-Poetry of Horace, Carmina, Books I to III (Collection Latomus; 310), Latomus, →ISBN, page 404:

     The rhinoceros’ horn stands upright. Through a belief in sympathetic magic, it is thought to make men’s parts stand upright, and male anxiety about their erection has come close to wiping out the population of rhinocerotes.

   • 2016, John Bloomberg-Rissman, In the House of the Hangman, volume 2, Laughing/Ouch/Cube/Publications, →ISBN, page 743:

     In any case, your five rhinocerotes won’t be appearing, nor will we stalely fellow them, we will be busy accrediting my hordes.

2. (archaic) plural of rhinocerot (“(now rare) a rhinoceros”)

   Synonym: rhinocerots

   • 1625, Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, J. MacLehose, page 63; republished Glasgow, 1905:

     Beyond that Country of Birds, is another wilde and mountainous, where abide many creatures much worse than those Birds, Elephants, Rhinocerotes, Lions, Wild-swine, Buffals, and Wild-kine.

Etymology 2

Noun

rhinocerotes

1. plural of rhinocerote (“(obsolete) a rhinoceros”)

Latin

Noun

rhīnocerōtēs

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of rhīnocerōs