gorilla

CEFRA2

/ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A large, strong ape from central Africa.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A big and brutish man or a thug; a goon or ruffian.

Examples

  • A reporter is interviewing Dr. Patterson about Koko, a talking gorilla.

  • Hundreds of people called or wrote to the Gorilla Foundation.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A powerful person or organization; a heavyweight or behemoth.

  2. An ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation to other primates.

  3. 1000 pounds sterling or dollar.

More examples

In context

  • “They are wicked people—neither white like you nor black like me, but covered with hair as is Bolgani, the gorilla. Yes, they are very bad people indeed, and Chowambi was glad to get out of their country.”

  • The two industry gorillas — IBM and AT&T — will get together to decide who will provide different communications services, Biddle stated.

  • "I'll do the old gorilla the justice to say that he is open-handed with money."

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

At the zoo, we saw a huge blank eating bananas.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι (Górillai, “Gorillai (a tribe of hairy women)”), described by Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian navigator and possible visitor to the area that later became Sierra Leone; the Greek word is likely from Punic, and ultimately from an African language.