"hippo" meaning in English

See hippo in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈhɪpəʊ/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈhɪpoʊ/ [US] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hippo.wav Forms: hippos [plural]
Rhymes: -ɪpəʊ Head templates: {{en-noun}} hippo (plural hippos)
  1. Clipping of hippopotamus. Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, clipping Alternative form of: hippopotamus
    Sense id: en-hippo-en-noun-FewC~aFH
  2. (historical, slang, South Africa) An armored personnel carrier used by the South African Defence Force. Tags: South-Africa, historical, slang Coordinate_terms: mellow yellow
    Sense id: en-hippo-en-noun--4kLBEsF Categories (other): South African English
  3. (informal, derogatory) An overweight or obese person. Tags: derogatory, informal Synonyms: fatass, fatso, fatty, whale
    Sense id: en-hippo-en-noun-Y1uRKM08 Categories (other): Obesity Disambiguation of Obesity: 0 0 100 0
  4. (informal, chess) Hippopotamus Defence. Tags: informal
    Sense id: en-hippo-en-noun-XGmrxxou Categories (other): Chess, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Chess openings Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 4 24 14 58 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 1 23 13 62 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 1 23 13 63 Disambiguation of Chess openings: 1 9 4 86 Topics: board-games, chess, games
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: hippo birdie two ewe, hippo fly, hippo grass, hippolike, pygmy hippo, velvet hippo, whippo
Categories (other): People Disambiguation of People: 0 0 0 0

Inflected forms

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          "text": "\"I've seen them buryin' a chief up the Aruwimi River, and they ate a hippo that must have weighed as much as a tribe.\"",
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          "ref": "2006 June 24, The Weekend Argus:",
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        "(informal, derogatory) An overweight or obese person."
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          "word": "fatass"
        },
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          "word": "fatso"
        },
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          "word": "fatty"
        },
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          "word": "whale"
        }
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}

Download raw JSONL data for hippo meaning in English (3.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (6fdc867 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.