Skip to content

gerbil

Today it means: A member of one of several species of small, jumping, mouselike rodents of the subfamily Gerbillinae, native to Africa, India, and Southern Europe. Full definition →

French gerbille ← Latin gerbo ← Arabic جَرْبُوع

Ask AI about its historyChatGPT Claude Perplexity Google AI Grok

The story

Arabic · derived fromجَرْبُوع
Latin · derived fromgerbo
French · borrowed fromgerbille
English todaygerbil

From French gerbille, from Latin gerbo, from Arabic جَرْبُوع (jarbūʕ) or يَرْبُوع (yarbūʕ, “jerboa”). Doublet of jerboa.

Words from the same roots

Frenchgerbille all →

Arabicجَرْبُوع all →

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.