Etymology

tenrec

T1E1N1R1E1C3

Today it means: Any of several diverse small mammals, of the family Tenrecidae, many native to Madagascar. Full definition →

French tanrec ← Malagasy tàndraka
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Malagasy · derived fromtàndraka
  2. French · derived fromtanrec
  3. English todaytenrec

From French tanrec, from Malagasy tàndraka or trandraka related to Malay landak (“porcupine”); English from 18th century.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.