‖ onager
(ˈɒnədʒə(r))
Pl. -gers, -gri.
[L. onager, ad. Gr. ὄναγρος = ὄνος ἄγριος the wild ass; also both in Gr. and L. in sense 2.]
1. A wild ass; spec. the species Equus onager (E. hemippus) of Central Asia.
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter ciii. 12 Abyde schal onagirs in þair thirst. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. lxxviii. (1495) 831 Onager is a wylde asse, and suche asses be grete and wylde in Affrica. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. I. 456 The onager, or wild ass, is seen in still greater abundance than the wild horse. 1883 G. Allen in Knowledge 6 July 1/1 The various tarpans and onagers and quaggas and zebras which span the gulf [between horse and ass]. 1896 Blackw. Mag. May 682 Hence the difference..between a coster's donkey and an onager. |
2. An ancient and mediæval engine for throwing stones in warfare.
| 1609 Holland Amm. Marcell. xxiii. iv. 222 Unto which also the moderne time hath imposed the name of Onager,..in this regard, that wild asses when they are coursed by hunters fling with their heeles stones afarre off behind their backs. 1840 L. Ritchie Windsor Castle 214 Of the more powerful military engines then in use, were the scorpion or large stationary crossbow, the onager or wild ass. 1886 Sheldon tr. Flaubert's Salammbo xiii. 310 Catapults were as frequently called onagers, because they were like wild asses which threw stones by kicking. |