ichneumon
/ɪkˈnjuːmən/noun
ichneumon is a noun meaning “An Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon), found in Africa and southern Europe” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-C-H-N-E-U-M-O-N, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ichneumon is ichneumons.
What does ichneumon mean?
noun
- 1
An Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon), found in Africa and southern Europe.
- 2
An ichneumon wasp.
- 3
a legendary animal, which kills crocodiles and dragons
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ichneumon?
- /ɪkˈnjuːmən/
- /ɪkˈnuːmən/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ichneumon.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ichneumon
- ichneumons plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ichneumon?
Ichneumon appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Ichneumon in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Herpestes ichneumon:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Ichneumon |
| Portuguese | saca-rabos |
| Spanish | meloncillo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ichneumon come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin ichneumōn, from Ancient Greek ἰχνεύμων (ikhneúmōn, “tracker”), from ἴχνος (íkhnos, “track, footstep”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).