noun
Meaning 1
One of several species of European bison or aurochs, which were unclearly delineated in the 1800s when this sense was in use.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Examples
- 1838-05, W. Weissenborn, "On the Influence of Man in modifying the Zoological Featurs of the Globe; with Statistical Accounts respecting a few of the more important Species", The Magazine of Natural History (page 239) The Zubr,* (Pr. Zhubr), Bos urus. * I give the preference to this name of the animal, because it is so called in the country where it now exists, and because many of its other synonyms are subject to controversy. (page 251-252) In addition to what Bojanus alleges, as being favorable to the opinion that the turs of Masovia were a few individuals of the original wild ox, (Bos taurus), which had escaped death or domestication, such as, he says, are still found in a few parks of Scotland and England; or what Jarocki states to prove that the tur was the same animal as the zubr which he thinks was called tur in Muscovia and Samogitia, and zubr in Lithuania, I shall say, in corroboration of the latter opinion, that nearly all that Herberstein knew about the tur from hearsay, is fabulous; (for instance, that it breeds with tame cows, but that the progeny does not come to perfection, "vituli qui nascuntur non sunt vitales;" that the turs which have mixed with tame cows, are expelled from their herd, as infamous, &c.) the report which he makes respecting the carcass of a tur, given to him by King Sigismundus Augustus, bears strong evidence of his having received a zubr, which the men who delivered it called tur, whereas he himself allows that he was absent at the time the present was received.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided