cassowary

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a large, powerful flightless bird of the genus Casuarius, native chiefly to New Guinea and northern Australia, with a horny casque on its head

   The male cassowary guarded the chicks beneath the rainforest canopy.

Borrowed in the early seventeenth century from Malay kasuari, ultimately from an Austronesian language of the Moluccas. European naturalists applied the borrowed name to the large casque-bearing ratite of New Guinea and nearby Australia.

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