tiger
noun
Simple meaning
Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tygerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtaɪɡɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia.
Certain other animals that resemble true tigers in appearance, pattern, colouration, etc.
Certain insects
A fierce or audacious person
“He's a tiger on the tennis court.”
figurative
A ferocious, bloodthirsty and audacious person.
A tiger butterfly in tribe Danaini, especially subtribe Danaina.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia.
Used this way, tiger is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use tiger
- “He's a tiger on the tennis court.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A terrorist organization in Sri Lanka that began in 1970 as a student protest over the limited university access for Tamil students.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Medium-sized wildcat of Central America and South America having a dark-striped coat.
Cowrie whose shell is used for ornament.
A young tiger.
East Asian perennial having large reddish-orange black-spotted flowers with reflexed petals.
Medium-sized moth with long richly colored and intricately patterned wings.
Having irregularly cross-banded back.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.