What is "antelope"

Antelope \An"te*lope\ ([a^]n"t[-e]*l[=o]p), n. [OF. antelop, F. antilope, from Gr. 'anqo`lops, -lopos, Eustathius, ``Hexa["e]m.,'' p. 36, the origin of which is unknown.] (Zo["o]l.) One of a group of ruminant quadrupeds, intermediate between the deer and the goat. The horns are usually annulated, or ringed. There are many species in Africa and Asia.

The antelope and wolf both fierce and fell.
--Spenser.

Note: The common or bezoar antelope of India is Antilope bezoartica. The chamois of the Alps, the gazelle, the addax, and the eland are other species. See Gazelle. The pronghorn antelope ( Antilocapra Americana) is found in the Rocky Mountains. See Pronghorn.

early 15c., from Old French antelop, from Medieval Latin ant(h)alopus (11c.), from Greek antholops (attested in Eusebius of Antioch, c.336 C.E.), a fabulous animal haunting the banks of the Euphrates, very savage, hard to catch and having long saw-like horns capable of cutting down trees. Original sense and language unknown (it looks like Greek "flower-eye," as if from anthos + ops, but that may be a result of Greek folk etymology). A heraldic animal, also known in Medieval Latin as talopus and calopus, the name was applied c.1600 to a living type of deer-like mammal. In the western U.S., it is used in reference to the pronghorn.

n. 1 Any of several African mammals of the family Bovidae distinguished by hollow horns, which, unlike deer, they do not shed. 2 (context US English) The pronghorn, ''Antilocapra americana''.

n. graceful Old World ruminant with long legs and horns directed upward and backward; includes gazelles; springboks; impalas; addax; gerenuks; blackbucks; dik-diks

An antelope is a member of a number of even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a wastebasket taxon (miscellaneous group) within the family Bovidae, encompassing those Old World species that are not cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, or goats. A group of antelope is called a herd.

Antelope are herbivorous mammals.

Antelope may also refer to:

Antelope was a slave ship with more than 280 captive Africans aboard captured by the United States in 1820. It had been legally engaged in the African slave trade under the flag of Spain when it was taken over by a privateer at Cabinda. The legal case on the fate of the captured Africans, known as The Antelope, lasted for seven years, with some of the Africans being turned over as slaves to Spanish owners, while 120 were sent as free people to Liberia. Both the commandeering of the boat, as well as the ensuing trial, are the subject of the book Dark Places of the Earth, by Jonathan M. Bryant.

Numerous ships have sailed under the name Antelope. Notable ones include:

• Antelope, launched in 1546, helped defeat the Spanish Armada
• Antelope, a 56-gun "great frigate" launched in 1651 for the Commonwealth of England, but wrecked in 1652
• Antelope, a packet ship launched in 1780, most famous for a desperate single-ship action in 1793 when she captured a much larger French privateer
• Antelope, a packet ship built for the British East India Company (EIC) in 1781 that made one voyage that ended when she was wrecked in 1783 off Ulong, and that resulted in the first sustained European contact with Palau
• Antelope, launched in 1802, became a slave ship whose capture in 1820 gave rise to a notable legal case
• Antelope of Boston was a clipper ship launched in 1851 and wrecked in 1858
• Antelope was a steamboat that operated on the southern Oregon coast from 1886 to about 1908
• Empire Antelope was built as Ophis in 1919, renamed Empire Antelope in 1941, and sunk in November 1942

• , one of 10 vessels that have served the Royal Navy

• , one of three vessels that have served the United States Navy