Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.15951

c10.15951

ZEBU, s. This whimsical name, applied in zoological books, English as well as French, to the humped domestic ox (or Brahminy bull) of India, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors of such a beast at a French fair, who perhaps invented the word, but who told him the beast had been brought from Africa, where it was called by that name. We have been able to discover no justification for this in African dialects, though our friend Mr. R. Cust has kindly made search, and sought information from other philologists on our account. Zebu passes, however, with most people as an Indian word; thus *Webster's Dictionary*, says "Zebu, the native Indian name." The only word at all like it that we can discover is *zobo* (q.v.) or *zhobo*, applied in the semi-Tibetan regions of the Himālaya to a useful hybrid, called in Ladak by the slightly modified form *dsomo*. In Jäschke's *Tibetan Dict.* we find "Ze-ba . . . 1. hump of a camel, zebu, etc." This is curious, but, we should think, only one of those coincidences which we have had so often to notice.