gazelle

plural gazelles · alternative obsolete gazel

1. An antelope of either of the genera Gazella (mostly native to Africa), Procapra (native to Asia), Eudorcas, or Nanger, capable of running at high speeds for long periods.

   “One does not judge the gazelle by the lions that attack it,” replied Tarzan.

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Forging Bonds of Hate and ——?”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 26

present singular third person gazelles · participle present gazelling · participle past gazelled · past gazelled · alternative obsolete gazel

1. figurativelyintransitiveTo leap like a gazelle.

   The biplane gazelled into the air.

   1982, J. G. Ballard, “Memories of the Space Age”, in Memories of the Space Age, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, published 1988, page 151

   2 more examples

   And all of the pine trees were in a bad state of repair, owning charred stumps of arms and blasted heads. Quite a number of them were dead; some of the corpses leaned starkly back in the arms of a live brother, but most of them preferred to fall across the road. Owing to this the car was soon gazelling again.

   1917, Marion Hill, chapter 2, in McAllister’s Grove, page 21

   When I started off [spacewalking] I didn’t run straight away—I started at a fairly fast walk, three or four miles an hour—but by the end I was jogging, well, gazelling, at almost six miles an hour.

   2014, Bob McDonald, Canadian Spacewalkers: Hadfield, MacLean and Williams Remember the Ultimate High Adventure, page 172

2. figurativelyintransitiveTo go fast; to speed; to rush.

   I actually heard the air move as about five people gazelled towards Lord Mandelson to try to stop another of his ill-timed leaks.

   2017, Eddie Mair, A Good Face for Radio: Confessions of a Radio Head, pages 10-11

   1 more example

   Nadezhda and I biked over together, me dressed in colonial whites, trundling along with other cyclists gazelling by me on both sides […]

   1990, Kim Stanley Robinson, Pacific Edge, page 90

1. A census-designated place in Siskiyou County, California, United States.