Just finished reading an article on meerkats [type of mongoose].

I'd like to know more about the etymology of the name. I searched Onelook.com and came away with just a little:

meer from the sea, and even though meerkats have nothing to do with the sea, apparently meer is somehow synonymous with monkeys that came from the sea--don't ask me how. And then kat from catte meaning cat.

So I suppose meerkat means either 'sea cat' or 'monkey cat.' Monkey cat makes more sense based on what I read about meerkats.

wwh: Meerkats have to be fodient--they dig like crazy looking for their scorpions!

Bolt-hole: Another word from the article that was new to me, but maybe not to the cross-ponders since the def. was chiefly British: a burrow or hole into which an animal flees for safety. It was stated in the article that the meerkat on sentinal duty can make a certain cry and the meerkat gang (and, yes, they're called either gangs or mobs) will all bolt into the same bolt-hole. The photographer who was reporting what he had seen said it was amazing and funny to him how they would all head toward the same bolt-hole when so many could have been chosen.

Pretty cool animals to read about. There's some kind of zoo/preserve for old and orphaned meerkats in California, wwh. Meerkats, according to the information I found on that site, make terrible pets, but they readily accept human company in the wild once they learn to trust the humans, even climbing up on the humans' heads to perform their sentinel duties.

Anyway, I'd like to know more about how their name came to be meerkat and if it means 'monkey cat' or 'sea cat,' which makes no sense at all. It must be monkey cat.

My Merriam-Webster gives the etymology thusly:
Afrikaans, from Dutch, a kind of monkey, from Middle Dutch meercatte monkey, from meer sea + catte cat
Date:1801

Which suggests that the phrase "sea cat" meant "monkey" in Middle Dutch, so the little critters now called meercats were so named not because they resembled the sea, or cats, but because they reminded someone, presumably someone who spoke Middle Dutch, of monkeys. That's a resemblance I can get, but I don't get why "seacat" should mean "monkey"

There were a couple wonderful Nature programs on PBS a long time ago about meerkats.
A lot of those old programs should be worth recycling, unless changes in recording
technology makes it impossible. I have also read a lot of old tapes have just crumbled. Sad.

I also remembered this:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/feature3/index.html

enjoy!

et'--

That's prescisely what I was reading last night. The multimedia presentation was terrific, although it took several minutes to download--and then two more segments took several more minutes to download. I especially enjoyed the meerkeet sounds on the tape--they reminded me of sounds I used to hear at my grandmother's various chicken houses--the mature chickens, the pullets and the chicks.

sjm says: but I don't get why "seacat" should mean "monkey"

As a suggestion, it may be because they arrived by sea. As a parallel, coal in parts of the UK was known as seacoal because it arrived by sea.

I learned the word "seacoal" when I was working in a foundry as a summer job. I don't know
exactly what the molders used it for. I have read elsewhere that the term refers to low grade
coal found near surface in places partly under sea water, or under sea water i;n the past.
From the Internet:
"For years, the effects of seacoal and seacoal supplements have been
evaluated in green sand molding. Changing government regulations,
however, have required an even greater need to understand their
emission characteristics. Therefore, a series of investigations
concerning the emissions of benzene were recently completed and
presented at the 1997 and 1998 AFS Casting Congresses.

Within these investigations, all of the primary seacoal and seacoal
supplements were evaluated. These include: seacoal (bituminous coal),
anthracite, gilsonite, causticized lignite and ground coke. The selection
of these materials was based upon a few basic principles that included:
availability of the material to the entire foundry industry, sufficient raw
materials reserves, suppliers' potential blending capability and costs to
the foundry industry."

Sounds like there's more to seacoal than I mistakenly remembered. Thanks for that. I shall pursue it further.

>sjm says: but I don't get why "seacat" should mean "monkey"

As a suggestion, it may be because they arrived by sea.


Thanks, that certainly sounds plausible.

it may be because they arrived by sea

That explains the "sea" part.

That explains the "sea" part.

Oh. I took it that not having seen monkeys the 'namers', whoever they were, decided from its agility and style of movement that it must be some kind of cat. This is certainly an assumption and I can't support it, but until some other explanation is provided...

Yes, from what I read on MW and other sources, it is true that the monkeys were believed to have come to the land from the sea...and that is the meer/monkey part of the equation. The catte part simply meant cat. So it must be that meerkat meant "monkey cat." And the cat part makes sense because, as suggested above, the meerkat does move about with the agility of the cat. As a friend noted in an offline conversation, they look like little men as they stand about. It is curious how they hold their little paws, side-by-side, over their little bellies as they stand in the sun to recover energy lost during the night. Their hands look prim and proper--they stand like dignitaries in a reception line.