from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun Any of several herbivorous mammals of the family Procaviidae of Africa and the Middle East, resembling woodchucks or similar rodents but more closely related to the hoofed mammals.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun The typical genus of the family Hyracidæ and order Hyracoidea, having the molar teeth like those of a rhinoceros in pattern, the lower incisors only slightly notched, the upper incisors approximated, and the upper lip cleft.
noun [lowercase] An animal of the genus Hyrax.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun (Zoöl.) Any animal of the genus Hyrax, of which about four species are known. They constitute the order Hyracoidea. The best known species are the daman (Hyrax Syriacus) of Palestine, and the klipdas (Hyrax capensis) of South Africa. Other species are Hyrax arboreus and Hyrax Sylvestris, the former from Southern, and the latter from Western, Africa. See Daman.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun any of several small, ungulateherbivorousmammals, of the orderHyracoidea, with a bulky frame and fang-like incisors; they are native to Africa and the Middle East.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun any of several small ungulate mammals of Africa and Asia with rodent-like incisors and feet with hooflike toes
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[New Latin, from Greek hurax, shrew mouse.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Ancient Greek ὕραξ (hurax, "shrewmouse").
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Examples
CORWIN: And actually, the hyrax, which is so amazing, is a relative of elephants.
They are said to proceed from a kind of hyrax (?) about the size of a rabbit; the Krumen call it a 'bush-dog', and, as will appear, Cameron holds it to be a lemur.
There is something inexplicable about East Africa: its endless skies dotted with puffs of clouds that seem within arms reach, the smell of dry brush on the savannah, the billowing dust on rutted dirt roads; the screams of a hyrax, the way the sun, cartoon-like, suddenly pops up at dawn and as quickly drops down at the same time every evening.
There is something inexplicable about East Africa: its endless skies dotted with puffs of clouds that seem within arms reach, the smell of dry brush on the savannah, the billowing dust on rutted dirt roads; the screams of a hyrax, the way the sun, cartoon-like, suddenly pops up at dawn and as quickly drops down at the same time every evening.
trivet commented on the word hyrax
the elephant's closest living relative, looks rather like a marmot with no tail
February 8, 2007