Rhinos

How to spell rhinos

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rhinos

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rhinos mean?

1. nounThe plural of rhino: large thick-skinned mammals with one or two horns on the snout.

Rhinos in a sentence

• The reserve protects a small herd of black rhinos.

• Poaching has pushed several species of rhinos toward extinction.

Where does rhinos come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is the everyday plural of "rhino", itself a casual shortening of "rhinoceros" that became common in the late nineteenth century. The longer word came into English in the 1300s from Latin rhinoceros, which the Romans borrowed from Greek rhinokeros. That Greek term is built from two parts: rhis, with the stem rhino-, meaning "nose", and keras, meaning "horn", so the animal is quite literally a "nose-horn". The same rhino- element for "nose" survives in medical words such as "rhinitis" (inflammation of the nose) and "rhinoplasty" (reshaping of the nose), which is a useful clue that the spelling opens with the silent-feeling "rh". That "rh" combination is the classic trap here: it reflects the Greek breathing mark and is the same pattern seen in "rhythm" and "rhetoric".

How the word is built

• rhino (clipped from rhinoceros)
• -s (plural)