gyascutus

[prettygoodword]

gyascutus (geye-uh-SKUHT-uhs) - n., a large, imaginary, four-legged animal with legs on one side longer than on the other, enabling it to walk easily on steep hillsides.


An American folkloric beast, with its range largely confined to the Southeast. A similar creature, the sidehill gouger, lived (or still lives) in the West, and others in isolated mountain ranges around the world. It first appears in newspapers in the 1840s, with a name apparently coined as a mock-Latinism.

---L.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

four-legged animal with legs on one side longer than on the other, enabling it to walk easily on steep hillsides

But only in one direction? :-)

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Yup. Wikipedia's article on the sidehill gouger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidehill_gouger) includes a painting with the caption "a "left-sided" mother looks forlornly at her "right-sided" pup."

---L.