CAVY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cavy mean? 

• CAVY (noun)
  The noun CAVY has 1 sense:

1. short-tailed rough-haired South American rodent

  Familiarity information: CAVY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAVY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Short-tailed rough-haired South American rodent

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("cavy" is a kind of...):

gnawer; rodent (relatively small placental mammals having a single pair of constantly growing incisor teeth specialized for gnawing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cavy"):

Cavia cobaya; guinea pig (stout-bodied nearly tailless domesticated cavy; often kept as a pet and widely used in research)

aperea; Cavia porcellus; wild cavy (South American cavy; possibly ancestral to the domestic guinea pig)

Holonyms ("cavy" is a member of...):

Cavia; genus Cavia (type genus of the Caviidae: guinea pigs)

 Context examples 

Taxonomic family which includes Guinea pigs, wild cavies, and the capybara.

(Caviidae, NCI Thesaurus)