Panda

How to spell panda

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce panda

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does panda mean?

1. nounA large black-and-white bear native to China that feeds mainly on bamboo, or the smaller reddish related animal of the Himalayas.

Panda in a sentence

• The zoo announced that its female panda had given birth to a cub.

• A giant panda can spend most of its day eating bamboo.

Where does panda come from?

Language of origin: Other

Panda came into English in the 1820s as the name for the small, reddish, raccoon-like animal of the eastern Himalayas now called the red panda. The word was borrowed from a Himalayan language, most likely Nepali, and one common suggestion traces it to a local word such as 'ponya', thought to refer to the animal's bamboo-eating habits or its paw, though the exact source is genuinely uncertain. For decades 'panda' meant only this red creature, and it was only later, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that the much larger black-and-white bear of China became known as the giant panda. Today the bear has all but taken over the plain word 'panda' in everyday speech. Because the spelling simply mirrors the way the word sounds, with no hidden or silent letters, it gives modern writers very little trouble.

How the word is built

• panda (single root, not formed from prefix or suffix)