thylacine
/ˈθailəsiːn/noun
thylacine is a noun meaning “A carnivorous marsupial (†Thylacinus cynocephalus) which was native to Tasmania, now extinct” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-H-Y-L-A-C-I-N-E, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of thylacine is thylacines.
What does thylacine mean?
noun
- 1
A carnivorous marsupial (†Thylacinus cynocephalus) which was native to Tasmania, now extinct.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce thylacine?
- /ˈθailəsiːn/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-thylacine.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of thylacine
- thylacines plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is thylacine?
Thylacine appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 118,441st 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).
Thylacine in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense extinct carnivorous marsupial:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | thylacine |
| German | Beutelwolf, Tasmanischer Wolf, Tasmanischer Tiger |
| Portuguese | tilacino, tigre-da-tasmânia, lobo-da-tasmânia |
| Spanish | tilacino, lobo de Tasmania, tigre de Tasmania |
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 thylacine come from?
From translingual Thylacinus; from Ancient Greek θύλακος (thúlakos, “pouch, sack”) + Latin -inus (-ine).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).