Etymology

quagga

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Today it means: A southern-African subspecies of plains zebra, Equus quagga quagga, which went extinct in 1883. The upper parts of the animal were reddish brown, becoming paler behind and beneath, while the face, neck, and fore part of the body were marked by dark stripes. Full definition →

Dutch quagga ← Khoekhoe ǁkoaah
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The story

  1. Khoekhoe · derived fromǁkoaah
  2. Dutch · borrowed fromquagga
  3. English todayquagga

From Dutch quagga (whence also Afrikaans kwagga), from a Khoisan term, probably Haiǁom, Khoekhoe ǁkoaah, apparently of imitative origin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.