Numida meleagris
- noun
- South African
:
gallina de Guinea
- The farmer raises Numida meleagris for both their eggs and their flavorful meat.
Examples
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Wild Numida meleagris are often spotted roaming the savannas of West Africa.
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Many restaurants feature dishes made from Numida meleagris as a delicacy.
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The Numida meleagris is often raised on farms for its meat.
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Have you seen a Numida meleagris in the wild?
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Many restaurants feature dishes made from Numida meleagris as a delicacy.
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The farmer raises Numida meleagris for both their eggs and their flavorful meat.
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The Numida meleagris is often raised on farms for its meat.
Synonyms
58
7.9
A bird with dark feathers and white spots often raised for meat
1
6.5
A farm bird from Africa with dark feathers and white spots, raised for meat and eggs
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a Latin taxonomic binomial composed of genus names rather than ordinary English lexical items; even if a learner recognises 'Numida' and 'Meleagris' as genus labels, the everyday meaning ('a species of guineafowl native to Africa, kept for meat and eggs') is a technical, arbitrary label and not compositionally derived from the parts. Scientific names behave as proper nouns across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent labels would still not reliably infer the species' common description.
Etymology
Numida meleagris may come from a place name and an old bird name: Numida points to parts of North Africa, and meleagris is an old word for guineafowl. So the name means 'the guineafowl from North Africa', which fits this dark bird spotted with white that people keep for meat and eggs.