Word Origins of Animal Names;
Hot Interesting Facts & Fun Girls

Here are some interesting words origins of the names of some animals.

Where did the bulldog get its name? Well contrary to some belief, it’s not because they look like bulls. The real reason is because a long time ago in England, there was this sport called bull-baiting, where they would tie the bull up in the middle of a ring and they would have bulldogs attack the bull until finally the bull would die. So these dogs, bulldogs, were specifically bread for this sport. Now eventually, the sport became outlawed because it was inhumane and the aggressiveness wasn’t bred into the bulldogs anymore. So the modern day bulldog is the same, just not as aggressive.

Penguins. The word penguin comes from the Welsh word, pin-head, guin-white. So if penguins have black heads, then why are they called penguins when it means white heads? Well that’s because early sailors actually called a different bird penguins because they had white spots on their heads. However, for some unknown reason, some other sailors later transferred the name of that bird, penguin, to the flightless birds that we know today as penguins.

Where does the word kangaroo come from? Although it’s been disputed, legend has it that a very famous English explorer named Captain James Cook went to Australia. Now he saw an animal that he wasn’t familiar with, so he asked one of the natives, “What’s the name of that animal right over there?” And the native replied to him, “Kangaroo.” Which in the native language meant “I don’t know.” However, Captain Cook thought that that was the name of that animal. So that’s why today, we call those animals, kangaroos.

Poodle. The word poodle comes from the German word “puddlehund.” Puddle, which means a puddle of water and hund which means hound or dog. Now here are some interesting facts about poodles. The female and the tiny toy breed of poodles are among the smartest breeds of dogs. Also, the standard poodle became very popular in France so then it became nicknamed the French poodle. I think that the most interesting fact is that in WWII, poodles were among the 25 or so breeds of dogs that the US army used to train.

Where did the moose get its name? Well originally, the Indians saw that the moose would rip the bark off of a tree and eat it like that. So the Indians names the moose “muss” which meant to tear away. No eventually, that Algonquin word became the English word that we know today, moose.

Coming up, more interesting word origins for words that relate to women.

In another video, weird scientific facts.

Thanks again for watching the video about word origins. If you have any words that you want to know the origins of, please leave me a comment, and I would love to do a video about it.