gentoo

plural gentoos

1. gentoo penguin

plural Gentoos

1. historicalA non-Muslim inhabitant of India, a Hindu; specifically, in Southern India, an ethnic-Telugu.

   2 more examples

   The Greeks, and all the Celtic nations, accordingly, burned the bodies of the dead, as the Gentoos do at this day; while the Egyptians, among whom fuel was extremely scarce, placed them in pyramidal monuments, which were the symbols of fire; hence come those prodigious structures which still adorn that country.

   1786, Richard Payne Knight, On the Worship of Priapus, section XI

   1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Spiritual Laws” in Essays (First Series), Boston: James Munroe, p. 133, The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing, unless it have an outside badge, — some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or Calvinistic prayer- meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great donation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat.

2. The gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), a species of penguin.

1. historicalThe Telugu language.