bear

en-noun

bear (countable and uncountable, plural bears)

Belizean Creole: byaa

→ Hawaiian: pea

→ Irish: béar

→ Maori: pea

→ Niuean: pea

→ Tahitian: pea

→ Tokelauan: pea

→ Wallisian: pea

→ Xhosa: ibhere

From Middle English bere, from Old English bera, from Proto-West Germanic *berō, from Proto-Germanic *berô (compare West Frisian bear, Dutch beer, German Bär, Danish bjørn).
etymology notes
This is generally taken to be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“shining, brown”) (compare Tocharian A parno, Tocharian B perne (“radiant, luminous”), Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)), related to brown, bruin, and beaver.
On this theory, the Germanic languages replaced the older name of the bear, *h₂ŕ̥tḱos, with the epithet "brown one", presumably due to taboo avoidance; compare Russian медве́дь (medvédʹ, “bear”, literally “honey-eater”).
However, Ringe (2006:106) doubts the existence of a root *bʰer- meaning "brown" ("an actual PIE word of [the requisite] shape and meaning is not recoverable") and suggests that a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰwer- (“wild animal”) "should therefore perhaps be preferred", implying a Germanic merger of *ǵʰw and *gʷʰ (*gʷʰ may sometimes result in Germanic *b, perhaps e.g. in *bidjaną, but it also seems to have given the g in gun and the w in warm).

der

don't sell the skin till you have caught the bear

sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you

By the time we got into Tulsa Town
We had eighty-five trucks in all
But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf
And them bears was wall-to-wall.
Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper
They even had a bear in the air.
I says, "Callin' all trucks, this here's the Duck.
We about to go a-huntin' bear."

1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall:

'The bear's pulling somebody off there at 74,' reported someone else.

1976 June, CB Magazine, Oklahoma City: Communications Publication Corporation, June 40/3:

He was listening for reports of Kojaks with Kodaks, or bear sightings (cop alerts) at his front door (ahead of him), especially plain wrappers (unmarked police cars) parked at specific yardsticks (mile-markers) taking pictures […]

2015, Matt Cashion, Last Words of the Holy Ghost, page 85:

(CB radio, slang, US) A state policeman (short for Smokey Bear).


she-bear

From Middle English sche bere; equivalent to she- + bear.

Elisha [...] was able to call upon two she-bears to come and eat up the children who had treated him irreverently[.]

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 52:

two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

2001, Bible Old Testament 2 Kings 2:24 (English Standard Version)

A female bear (as opposed to a he-bear, male bear).


ursine

Mid 16th century, from Latin ursīnus, adjectival form of ursus (“bear”) + -ine.


panda

→ Malay: panda

→ Japanese: パンダ (panda)

→ Korean: 판다 (panda)

→ Tagalog: panda

→ Thai: แพนด้า (pɛn-dâa)

Borrowed from French panda, of unclear ultimate origin but probably from the second element of nigálya-pónya, a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim by Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800 or 1801 – 1894), an ethnologist, naturalist and the British Resident of Nepal, possibly from Nepali निँगाले (nĩgāle, “relating to a certain species of bamboo”) (the adjectival form of निँगालो (nĩgālo), a variant of निङालो (niṅālo, “Drepanostachyum intermedium, a species of bamboo”)) + a regional Tibetan name for the animal (compare regional Tibetan ཕོ་ཉ (pho nya, “messenger”)).
Attributive uses of sense 2 (“giant panda”) generally refer to that animal’s distinctive black and white coat colour.

The red panda's history in zoos begins some 40 years after its discovery. The first one to be seen outside of its natural range arrived at London Zoo on 22nd May 1869, [...] On arrival at the zoo, the last surviving panda was given into the care of Abraham Bartlett, the superintendent of the zoo. [...] The feeding instructions that came with the panda said it should be given milk, a little rice and grass each day. [...] Bartlett felt that the suggested diet was not adequate and set out to find what the animal would accept; [...] Unfortunately, although it ate well, this first zoo red panda was not destined for a long life, it died suddenly during the night of 12 December 1869, a little over 6 months after its arrival.

2011, Angela R. Glatston, “Introduction”, in Angela R. Glatston, editor, Red Panda: Biology and Conservation of the First Panda, London, Burlington, Mass.: Academic Press, →ISBN, page 7:

Ailurus fulgens
Ailurus fulgens#Translingual

(now rare without a qualifying word) The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), a small raccoon-like animal of northeast Asia with reddish fur and a long, ringed tail.

Ailuropoda melanoleuca
Ailuropoda melanoleuca#Translingual

(colloquial, also attributively) Short for giant panda (“Ailuropoda melanoleuca”).

ፓንዳ

Ailuropoda melanoleuca — see also giant panda

Before the confrontation, the youth sighted a police personnel carrier, two dog patrol vans, a motorway style car, at least two pandas and one unmarked police car.

1975, Darcus Howe, editor, Race Today, London: Race Today Collective, →OCLC, page 279:

(British, law enforcement, colloquial) Short for panda car (“a black-and-white police car”).


sow

From Middle English sowe, from Old English sugu, from Proto-West Germanic *sugu, from Proto-Germanic *sugō, probably from Proto-Indo-European *su(H)kéh₂, from *suH- (“pig”).
See also West Frisian sûch, Dutch zeug, Low German Söög, German Sau, Swedish sugga, Norwegian sugge; also Welsh hwch (“pig”), Sanskrit सूकर (sūkará, “swine, boar”); also Danish so, German Sau, Latin sūs, Tocharian B suwo, Ancient Greek ὗς (hûs), Albanian thi, Avestan 𐬵𐬏 (hū, “boar”). See also swine. Doublet of soor.

In England, it was generally termed a 'sow', if the weight was above 10 cwts., if below, it was termed a 'pig' from which the present term 'pig iron' is derived.

1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 160:

(military) A kind of covered shed, formerly used by besiegers in filling up and passing the ditch of a besieged place, sapping and mining the wall, etc.


boar

non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger

From Middle English bor, boor, from Old English bār, from Proto-West Germanic *bair.

And drivers on local roads have encountered traveling boars, which can run at up to 30 miles an hour, according to one local resident, who said a friend’s car collided with a 132-pound animal, totaling the vehicle, as well as killing the boar.

2024 August 24, Stephen Castle, “The Loch Ness Monster Has Company in the Neighborhood: Wild Boars”, in The New York Times:

A wild boar (Sus scrofa), the wild ancestor of the domesticated pig.


polar bear

Coined by Thomas Pennant in A Synopsis of Quadrupeds (1771).

Ursus maritimus
Ursus maritimus#Translingual

A hypercarnivorous species of bear, Ursus maritimus, whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle.


black bear

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-black bear.wav

Ursus americanus
Ursus americanus#Translingual

An American black bear, Ursus americanus, indigenous to North America.


bruin

From Middle Dutch bruun (“brown”) via William Caxton's 1485 translation of a Dutch version of the legend of Reynard the Fox. Bruin is the bear, named for his brown color. Doublet of brown.

The mother sought the one gone / astray, for the lost she longs: / she ran great swamps as a wolf / trod the wilds as a bruin / waters as an otter roamed […].

1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section XVII:

A folk name for a bear, especially the brown bear, Ursus arctos.


brown bear

A species of bears native to northern America, Europe and Asia having brownish fur. (Ursus arctos)


grizzly bear

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-grizzly bear.wav

The Quantum Grizzly Bear pisses me off.

2024 May 16, very tall bart, [YTP] State of the Union, spoken by Jordan Peterson (Jordan Peterson):

Ursus arctos horribilis
Ursus arctos horribilis#Translingual

A large North American subspecies, Ursus arctos horribilis, of the brown bear.


dubb

From Arabic دُبّ (dubb, “bear”). The Anglicization appears only rarely or ad hoc. One Richard Pockocke in 1738 reported that the dubber was seen only rarely in Egypt.

The Eurasian brown bear Ursus arctos syriacus.


grizzly

en-adj

grizzly (comparative grizzlier, superlative grizzliest)

grizzlier (comparative)
grizzliest (superlative)


bearskin

en-noun

bearskin (countable and uncountable, plural bearskins)

(countable) A tall ceremonial hat worn by members of some British regiments for ceremonial occasions; a busby.


white bear

From Middle English white bere. By surface analysis, white + bear.

A white, semi-aquatic marine species of bear, Ursus maritimus, that is native and best adapted to the Arctic mix of land, ice and sea.


prizzly

A hybrid between a polar bear and a grizzly bear.


giant panda

→ Japanese: ジャイアントパンダ (jaianto panda)

A rare, black and white mammal, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, in the ursid (bear) family.


sloth bear

More people in India are killed by sloth bears than by tigers.

2002, Andrew M. McDearmid, Heart of a Hunter: Big Game Hunting, page 145:

As in other species of wild bears, sloth bears are most likely to die young, especially during the first few months after they have left their mothers.

2002, Bernard Stonehouse, A Visual Introduction to Bears, page 31:

Sloth bear attacks are in no way a thing of the past. In recent years, Sri Lankan wildlife expert Shyamala Ratnayeke has surveyed close to three hundred of her countrymen who have encountered and, in some cases, been injured by sloth bears.

2007, Bernd Brunner, Bears: A Brief History, page 134:

Melursus ursinus
Melursus ursinus#Translingual

A nocturnal bear, Melursus ursinus, native to South Asia.


bearcat

Arctictis binturong
Arctictis binturong#Translingual

Any member of diverse species of the order Carnivora:

A binturong (Arctictis binturong, in the family Viverridae).

(obsolete) A giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, in the family Ursidae).

(obsolete) A red panda (Ailurus fulgens, in the family Ailuridae).


moon bear

From moon + bear, so named for the crescent shaped blaze upon its breast.

Ursus thibetanus
Ursus thibetanus#Translingual


Etruscan bear

1968 [Transaction Publishers], Björn Kurtén, Pleistocene Mammals of Europe, 2017, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 120,
The first Etruscan bears were small, about the size of the modern Asiatic black bear; but they tended to increase in size and the terminal forms were as large as a brown bear.

About 2.5 million years ago the Auvergne bear gave rise to the Etruscan bear. Fossil remains from Spain, France, Italy, and China suggest that Etruscan bears were about the size of modern American black bears and were gradually increasing in size.[…]The Etruscan bear, about 2 million years ago, gave us the grizzly bear.

2012, Andrew E. Derocher, Polar Bears, Johns Hopkins University Press, page 36:

It^([the Auvergne bear]) appears to have given rise to the Etruscan bear (Ursus etruscus), which is so similar to the Asian black bear that some researchers consider them to be one and the same. In a fairytalelike twist, the Etruscan bear gave rise to Europe's three bears of yore: the brown bear, the cave bear and the polar bear.

2018, Tim Flannery, Luigi Boitani, Europe: A Natural History, Text Publishing, page 140:

An extinct species of bear, †Ursus etruscus, endemic to Europe, Asia and North Africa during the Pliocene and Pleistocene (approximately 5.3 million to 100,000 years ago).


pygmy giant panda

pygmy giant panda (plural pygmy giant pandas)

The earliest known ancestor of the giant panda, †Ailuropoda microta, now extinct.


Kodiak

From Russian Кадьяк (Kadʹjak), from Aleut qikertaq (“island”).

A town in Alaska: see Wikipedia:Kodiak, Alaska


Kodiak bear

The largest brown bear, Ursus arctos middendorffi, found on Kodiak Island off the south coast of Alaska, United States.


sun bear

A species of relatively small bears, Helarctos malayanus, found in Southeast Asia.


ursid

(zoology) Any species of the family Ursidae; a bear, a giant panda, or any of certain extinct relatives.

ursidé

any member of the family Ursidae, the bears


honey bear

Audio (US)


Kermode bear

/ˈkɜːɹmoʊd bɛəɹ/

/kəɹˈmoʊd bɛəɹ/

Named after researcher Frank Kermode /ˈkɜːɹmoʊd/.

A subspecies of the American black bear, Ursus americanus kermodei found in British Columbia, some members of which have white or cream-colored (rather than black) skin due to a recessive gene.


bear-whelp

From Middle English bere-hwelp, equivalent to bear + whelp.


cave bear

The more striking phenomena first and most strongly impress the mind, which contrasts for example, the great Cave-Bears of Europe with the actual Brown Bear, the Megatheriods of South America with the small existing sloths, and the gigantic Glyptodons with the Armadillos.

1851 June 11, The Geelong Advertiser, Victoria, page 1, column 2:

It begs the question: why did the Neanderthals “fail,” since the cave-dwelling hominin, like the cave bear, faltered during the last glaciation, not afterward?

2012, Lydia Pyne, Stephen J. Pyne, chapter 7, in The Last Lost World, Penguin, →ISBN:

A large extinct species of bear, †Ursus spelaeus.


spectacled bear

spectacled bear (plural spectacled bears)

Some specimens have spectacle markings on the face.

Tremarctos ornatus
Tremarctos ornatus#Translingual

Tremarctos ornatus, a species of small, short-faced bear native to South America.


mama bear

(informal) A female bear currently rearing one or more cubs.


spirit bear

靈熊 /灵熊

translations based on "spirit bear" — see also Kermode bear


bearling

From Middle English berling, equivalent to bear + -ling.

While waiting at the inn up drove a Pau acquaintance in the person of the Marquis de Cherizet, out of whose pony-carriage was lifted a square box, which proved to contain a poor little bearling of about a month old, whose mother had been shot, and itself captured, […]

1871, “May-Day among the Mules”, in Charles Dickens, editor, All the Year Round:

(diminutive) A small, young, or juvenile bear.


aswail

From Marathi अस्वल (asval) or a related term in another Indian language.

An Aswail brought to me from the woods when quite young, and which lived some time in my possession, fed by choice almost exclusively upon roast mutton and fowl; rejecting all fruits and vegetables.

1832, William Henry Sykes, A Catalogue of the Mammalia and Birds Observed in Dukhun:

[…] mutilated parts of an Aswail from Ceylon together with parts of a three-toed Sloth […]

1953, Dirk Pieter Erdbrink, A Review of Fossil and Recent Bears of the Old World, volume 1:

(dated) The sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), an India bear.


grolar bear

A hybrid of the grizzly bear and the polar bear.


Winnie the Pooh

en-proper noun

Winnie the Pooh (plural Winnie the Poohs)

From a bear cub named Winnie, short for Winnipeg, and a swan named Pooh.

No amount of Winnie the Poohs on the wall could distract you from seeing the huge bloodstain on the carpet.

2004, John A. Miller, Jr, The Victorian Mansion Murders, Pima Books, →ISBN, page 40:

Even in Europe, where killer bees are not much a menace, we have developed a kind of Winnie-the-Pooh attitude to the bees: they are dangerous, they are unpredictable, and they are usually acting to thwart us.

2007, Bee Wilson, The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us, Macmillan, page 221:

The Stop commander was one Colonel Zimin, a loud, round, cheerful Winnie the Pooh type, who was always in excellent spirits, always joking and liked to pat the soldiers affectionately on the cheek when talking to them.

2009, Arkady Babchenko, “The Diesel Stop”, in Jeff Parker, Mikhail Iossel, editors, Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia, Tin House Books, page 160:

Awake each day with excitement; there are pirates to fight, a yellow brick road to find, and new parts of Winnie the Pooh's forest to explore.

2011, Mark Grant, Out of the Box and onto Wall Street, John Wiley & Sons, page 375:

Winnie the Poohs can be a little smug and take great pride in the fact that while the rest of us are spinning like crazy tops, they're walking calmly through life.

2012, Kay Warren, Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn't Enough, Baker Books, page 44:

They had all, to a man and woman, been rumbled, like so many Winnie The Poohs with their hands in Rabbit's honey pot.

2013, Douglas Lindsay, The End Of Days, Blasted Heath Ltd, page 11:

Like the time Mum made the Winnie the Pooh chocolate lollies for the cake sale, before cakes got banned. And I COULDN’T WAIT for them to set and go hard, so I could have one. So I kept taking them out of the fridge and drinking a bit out of the mould. And then when Mum went to get them in the morning, none of the Winnie the Poohs had any legs, and Eeyore didn’t have a head.

2014, Pamela Butchart, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners, Nosy Crow, →ISBN:

Censored photos included one of Winnie the Pooh in a car (Internet users in China have long likened Mr. Xi to images of the pudgy bear) and another of the Obama family purportedly watching the parade on television.

2015 September 3, Patrick Boehler, “Trending on Chinese Social Media: Xi’s Salute, an Autocrat’s Son and Winnie the Pooh”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-01-31, World:

When I returned, I said, “My daughter’s doing the nursery in Winnie the Pooh.” “Pooh?” she said. “Yes,” I said. “Winnie the.” “Pooh,” she repeated. I sensed that she wasn’t happy with me for some reason or another. “Pooh,” I reiterated. She said (very patronizingly, I might add), “Sir, we have at least four different Winnie the Poohs in our collection. You have your classic Pooh, your Disney Pooh …”

2016, Gene Perret, New Tricks for Old Dogs: 28 Laughable Lessons for People Too Stiff to Change … or Bend … or Move, Familius LLC, →ISBN:

A talking bear from an English children's book series carrying the same name, noted for his sweet, simple nature, and his love of honey.

Joanica-Puff (Portugal, Terramar's book translation)

Winny de Puh m (1980's book translation)

Winnie-the-Pooh

A. A. Milne used hyphens, while the Disney version does not


pizzly

This means that ʽPizzlies’ (as recent polar bear/brown bear hybrids are known), are not a new phenomenon, but have been produced for hundreds of thousands of years.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 155:


American black bear

en-noun

American black bear (plural American black bears)

A bear of the species Ursus americanus, native to cooler climates in North America.


short-faced bear

short-faced bear (plural short-faced bears)

The biggest of the Alaskan short-faced bears weighed over a ton, three times the weight of the biggest modern-day predator on land, the Siberian tiger, and four times that of an adult male grizzly bear.

2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 12:

An in the genus †Arctodus of extinct bears from Pleistocene North America,.


Asian black bear

Asian black bear (plural Asian black bears)

The Auvergne bear, Ursus minimus, was similar to, but a little smaller than, the Asian black bear.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 140:

A bear of the species Ursus thibetanus (previously known as Selenarctos thibetanus).


sea bear

Callorhinus ursinus
Callorhinus ursinus#Translingual

(obsolete) Any of a number of pinnipeds, but mostly fur seals, and especially the northern fur seal, Callorhinus ursinus.


pizzly bear

A hybrid of the polar bear and the grizzly bear.


Winnie-the-Pooh

Alternative form of Winnie the Pooh (the original A. A. Milne form contains hyphens).


grolar

Blend of polar (“polar bear”) + grizzly (“grizzly bear”)

blend

Polar bears that spend more time on land as their sea ice habitat shrinks are coming into contact with grizzly bears that have wandered further north – resulting in “grolar” or “pizzly” bear hybrids.

2018 April 22, Oliver Milman, The Guardian:

A hybrid cross between a polar bear and a grizzly.


ice bear

From ice + bear. Compare German Eisbär, Dutch ijsbeer, Danish isbjørn.


nanook

Borrowed from Inuktitut ᓇᓄᖅ (nanoq, “polar bear”).

Let's build a nanook. A big one. Almost as big as a real one!

1935, Armstrong Sperry, One Day with Tuktu: An Eskimo Boy:

"I have a way with nanooks," Mazwuk explained, hoping that none would notice the tremor in his voice, […]

She dressed: white T-shirt, black jeans, blue sweatshirt with the gold UAF nanook on the front, white anklets, black-and-white Nike tennis shoes.

2001, Dana Stabenow, The Singing of the Dead, →ISBN, page 110:

Promising in her Inaugural Address to protect the state like a "nanook defending her cub," she has continued to play down social issues as governor.

2008, Briton Hadden, Henry Robinson Luce, Time - Volume 172, page 102:


ailuropodin

Any giant panda of the subfamily Ailuropodinae


he-bear

A male bear (as opposed to a she-bear, female bear).


bearess

As it is the only spirit I possess I heed his advice and bring it back to the hotel to find the entire force standing at attention, ready to receive me. I pass on to my room with a procession of bearers and bearesses strung out behind me like the tail of a kite, anything from a tea-tray to the sugar tongs being sufficient excuse for joining the parade.

1912, Frances Little, The Lady and Sada San: A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., pages 60–61:

Ring bearer and bearess were Larry and Mary Lynn Ayers, Springfield, Va., nephew and niece of the bridegroom.

1968 April 3, “Greencastle Girl Marries In Arlington, Virginia”, in The Morning Herald, volume XCIV, number 80, Hagerstown, Md.:

Some aggressively degenerate Chinese emperors and noblemen used to make a spectacle of their comely female sedan-chair bearers. (Perhaps properly: bearesses or she-bears or bearpersons.)

1975 December 18, “Tourists main client of China’s dwindling rickshaws”, in The Advocate, Newark, Oh., page 33, column 5:

Ring bearess and flower girl were Emily and Elizabeth Goldeman.

1995 September 19, “Musgrave — Johnson”, in The Ithaca Journal, Ithaca, N.Y., page 6A, column 3:

On the other hand, we must say that what distinguishes this “concreteness” is the essential, originary distinction between the “physical” person (the bearer, or bearess of the philosophical discourse) and his or her truly being a philosopher.

2007, Romano Màdera, Vero Luigi Tarca, “Philosophical Practices as the Valorization and Care for “Beautiful People””, in Philosophy as Life Path: An Introduction to Philosophical Practices, Milan: IPOC di Pietro Condemi, translation of La filosofia come stile di vita: Introduzione alle pratiche filosofiche, →ISBN, pages 186–187:

Natalie Ambrusko of Tonawanda, NY was a ring bearess; Katherine Ambrusko of Pittsburgh, PA and Audrey Kefor of Glastonbury, CT were flower girls, all three are cousins of the bride

2007 December 2, “Hill - Ackers”, in Poughkeepsie Journal, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., page 3I, column 2:

The bridesmaids gestured that it was time for the rings and Elizabeth, who was apparently the ring bearess, rose to the occasion.

2014, Sam Harris, “Promises”, in Ham: Slices of a Life, Gallery Books, →ISBN, page 17:


Louisiana black bear

en-noun

Louisiana black bear (plural Louisiana black bears)

Ursus americanus luteolus, a subspecies of American black bear.


Atlas bear

Ursus arctos crowtheri, an extinct population of brown bear native to North Africa that went extinct in historical times.


Auvergne bear

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 140:

An extinct bear, Ursus minimus, which lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and Pliocene.


particoloured bear

particoloured bear (plural particoloured bears)


tremarctine

Any of the ursids of the subfamily Tremarctinae, including the extant spectacled bear and related extinct species.