What is "zebra"

Zebra \Ze"bra\, n. [Pg. zebra; cf. Sp. cebra; probably from a native African name.] (Zo["o]l.) Any member of three species of African wild horses remarkable for having the body white or yellowish white, and conspicuously marked with dark brown or brackish bands.

Note: The true or mountain zebra ( Equus zebra syn. Asinus zebra) is nearly white, and the bands which cover the body and legs are glossy black. Its tail has a tuft of black hair at the tip. It inhabits the mountains of Central and Southern Africa, and is noted for its wariness and wildness, as well as for its swiftness. The second species ( Equus Burchellii syn. Asinus Burchellii or Equus quagga), known as Burchell's zebra, plains zebra, and dauw, is the most abundant, inhabiting the grassy plains of tropical and southern Africa, and differing from the preceding in not having dark bands on the legs, while those on the body are more irregular. It has a long tail, covered with long white flowing hair. Grevy's zebra ( Equus grevyi) is distinct from the others in being placed in the subgenus Dolichohippus, whereas the plains and mountain zebras are placed in the subgenus Hippotigris. More on zebras can be found at: http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/zebra.html

Zebra caterpillar, the larva of an American noctuid moth ( Mamestra picta). It is light yellow, with a broad black stripe on the back and one on each side; the lateral stripes are crossed with withe lines. It feeds on cabbages, beets, clover, and other cultivated plants.

Zebra opossum, the zebra wolf. See under Wolf.

Zebra parrakeet, an Australian grass parrakeet, often kept as a cage bird. Its upper parts are mostly pale greenish yellow, transversely barred with brownish black crescents; the under parts, rump, and upper tail coverts, are bright green; two central tail feathers and the cheek patches are blue. Called also canary parrot, scallop parrot, shell parrot, and undulated parrot.

Zebra poison (Bot.), a poisonous tree ( Euphorbia arborea) of the Spurge family, found in South Africa. Its milky juice is so poisonous that zebras have been killed by drinking water in which its branches had been placed, and it is also used as an arrow poison.
--J. Smith (Dict. Econ. Plants).

Zebra shark. Same as Tiger shark, under Tiger.

Zebra spider, a hunting spider.

Zebra swallowtail, a very large North American swallow-tailed butterfly ( Iphiclides ajax), in which the wings are yellow, barred with black; -- called also ajax.

Zebra wolf. See under Wolf.

c.1600, from Italian zebra, perhaps via Portuguese, earlier applied to a now-extinct wild ass, of uncertain origin, said to be Congolese [OED], or Amharic [Klein], but perhaps ultimately from Latin equiferus "wild horse," from equus "horse" (see equine) + ferus (see fierce). Related: Zebrine; zebroid.

n. 1 Any of three species of genus ''Equus'': ''Equus grevyi'', ''Equus quagga'', or ''Equus zebra'', all with black and white stripes and native to Africa. 2 (context sports slang English) A referee. 3 (context medicine slang English) An unlikely diagnosis, especially for symptoms probably caused by a common ailment. (Originates in the advice often given to medical students: "When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.") 4 (context vulgar pejorative slang English) A bi-racial person, specifically one born to a member of the Sub-Saharan African race and a Caucasian.

n. any of several fleet black-and-white striped African equines

Zébra is a village in Ivory Coast. It is in the sub-prefecture of Gboguhé, Daloa Department, Haut-Sassandra Region, Sassandra-Marahoué District.

Zébra was a commune until March 2012, when it became one of 1126 communes nationwide that were abolished.

Zebra is one of several species of the horse genus Equus whose members have distinctive stripes.

Zebra may also refer to:

Zebra is a hard rock band founded in 1975 in New Orleans, Louisiana. It features Randy Jackson (guitar and vocals), Felix Hanemann (bass, keyboards and vocals) and Guy Gelso (drums and vocals). Their mainstream debut on Atlantic Records was in 1983 with their eponymous album, produced by Jack Douglas and highlighted by the singles "Tell Me What You Want" and "Who's Behind The Door?" Zebra got their start on the US East Coast club circuit, frequently playing at clubs on Long Island.

Zebra started their career by playing covers of Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues and Rush songs; it was their early fans' reaction to their Led Zeppelin renditions that helped convince the band to bring their act to New York. They had introduced their original material into their cover sets years before they were signed to Atlantic Records, including "The La La Song," "Free" and "Bears" (originally entitled "The Bears are Hibernating").

Zebra had been noticed by local colleges and even had some of their early original performances recorded by Long Island FM radio station WBAB, culminating in the inclusion of one of their songs on a release of " WBAB Homegrown Album", which commemorated some of the station's best local acts and performances culled from their on-air "Homegrown Hour" program.

The band continued to tour throughout the 1980s, but took a temporary break in the early 1990s after being dropped by Atlantic Records. Randy Jackson formed his solo band Randy Jackson's China Rain, and released its only album in the year 1993. Zebra finally reunited in 1997 and released Zebra IV in 2003, their first album of all-new material since 1986. A DVD of recent live performances, mostly from a show at the House of Blues in New Orleans, was released in the summer of 2007.

On July 10, 2010, during their 35th-anniversary performance at New Orleans' Mahalia Jackson Theater, Zebra was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

On October 8, 2012, Zebra was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

In March 2013, Zebra performed on Cruise to the Edge, a concert cruise featuring notable progressive rock bands including Yes, Steve Hackett, U.K., Carl Palmer Band, Ambrosia, Saga, Nektar, Glass Hammer, and IOEarth.

Zebra is the eighth studio album by the electronica Swiss band Yello. The record was released on 17 October 1994 through 4th & B'way and Mercury labels.

Zebra is the American medical slang for arriving at an exotic medical diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely. It is shorthand for the aphorism coined in the late 1940s by Dr. Theodore Woodward, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who instructed his medical interns: "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras". Since horses are common in Maryland while zebras are relatively rare, logically one could confidently guess that an animal making hoofbeats is probably a horse. By 1960, the aphorism was widely known in medical circles.

As explained by Sotos, medical novices are predisposed to make rare diagnoses because of (a) the availability heuristic ("events more easily remembered are judged more probable") and (b) the phenomenon first enunciated in Rhetorica ad Herennium (circa 85 BC), "the striking and the novel stay longer in the mind." Thus, the aphorism is an important caution against these biases when teaching medical students to weigh medical evidence.

Diagnosticians have noted, however, that "zebra"-type diagnoses must nonetheless be held in mind until the evidence conclusively rules them out:

The term for an obscure and rare diagnosis in medicine is fascinoma.

The ZEBRA (Zeer Eenvoudige Binaire Reken Automaat translated Very Simple Binary Automatic Calculator) was one of the first computers to be designed in the Netherlands, (the first one was the " ARRA") and one of the first Dutch computers to be commercially available. It was designed by Willem van der Poel of the Netherlands Post, Telegraph and Telephone, and first delivered in 1958. The production run consisted of fifty-five machines, manufactured and marketed by the British company Standard Telephones and Cables, Ltd.

The ZEBRA was a binary, two-address machine with a 33-bit word length. Storage was provided by a magnetic drum memory holding 8K words; accumulators were also implemented as recirculating drum tracks in a manner similar to that used in the Bendix G-15. Peripherals included paper tape reader and punch, and teleprinter.

"Zebra" is the first single released from the John Butler Trio's album Sunrise Over Sea. Featuring the Sunrise lineup of John Butler on guitar/vocals, Shannon Birchall on double bass and Nicky Bomba on drums/percussion, it blends the genres of folk, funk, rock, and a bit of blues.

Zebra is exceptionally known for its catchy refrain and lyrics which are entirely about opposites, for example "I can be alive, man, or be the walking dead" or "I can be black or I can be white".

Zebra Co., Ltd. is a Japanese manufacturer of writing instruments. Zebra Pen Corporation (the American branch) was founded in New York in 1982 as an independent corporation wholly owned by Zebra Co. Ltd. The company sells a wide range of pens, pencils, and highlighters through retail stores, wholesalers and mail order. The Zebra Pen Corporation offers a line of writing instruments that include ball point pens, gel pens, roller ball pens, fountain pens, mechanical pencils and highlighters.

Zebra is an album by Jack DeJohnette featuring trumpeter Lester Bowie recorded in 1985 for the video program titled " Tadayuki Naito/Zebra" and released on the MCA label in 1989. The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow states "The performances are moody and has its colorful moments... Superior background music, recommended mostly to Jack DeJohnette completists".

Zebra is the debut album by American hard rock band Zebra, released in 1983, eight years after they were founded. The album features all original material, with the exception of " Slow Down" (a Larry Williams tune best remembered for a 1964 cover version by The Beatles) injected at mid-song with much of the second stanza of Carl Perkins' " Blue Suede Shoes", altered at its end:

"Knock me down, step on my face,
slander my name all over the place;
do anything that you want to do,
what are you tryin' to do?"

The album also features two hits which received national airplay: "Who's Behind The Door?" and "Tell Me What You Want". On the strength of both singles the album became one of Atlantic's fastest-selling debut albums ever and peaked at #29, attaining a level of commercial success the band was unable to repeat on subsequent releases.

"Take Your Fingers From My Hair" was covered by Dream Theater for the special edition of their 10th studio album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings.

This album, along with the follow-up No Tellin' Lies, was remastered and reissued by UK-based company Rock Candy Records in 2013.

Zebra Programming Language (ZPL and ZPL II) is a page description language from Zebra Technologies. It is used primarily for labeling applications. The original ZPL was advanced to ZPL II, but a full compatibility with the older version is not given. Meanwhile, ZPL II is emulated by many label printers of various producers.

Later, the Zebra Basic Interpreter (ZBI) was integrated into printer software, which is seen as an advancement to ZPL II by the producer and is ANSI BASIC oriented. Primarily, it is intended to avoid a refactoring of code when changing the printer, if the old printer software was written by a label printer of a competitor. With ZBI, it should be possible that the Zebra printer gets an "alien" data format and converts it to the requested ZPL II format automatically.

Some printers also support the older Eltron Programming Language (EPL) for printers.

Zebra is a studio album by Polish singer Kayah, released in 1997.

The zebra is a fairy chess piece that moves like a stretched knight. When it moves, it can jump to a square that is three squares horizontally and two square vertically, or three squares vertically and two square horizontally, regardless of intervening pieces; thus, it is a (2,3)-leaper. Below, it is given the symbol J from Betza notation.

Zebra ( Serbian Cyrillic: Зебра) was a Yugoslav rock group from Belgrade.