Also 8 -ette, -etta. [See prec.: Montoya 1639 has ‘Yaguarete tigre.’] Adaptation of the Guarani specific name for the jaguar; long mistaken by European writers for a distinct species or variety, and applied by some to the Black Jaguar.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. Jaguarete,… the name of a Brasilian beast of prey, accounted by Marggrave a species of tyger, but improperly; its roundish spots arguing it of the lynx or leopard kind…. It much resembles the creature called Jaguara, but is larger.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. xiv. 234. The sixth class … comprehends the Cat, the Lion, the Panther, the Leopard, the Jaguar, the Cougar, the Jaguarette, the Lynx, the Ounce, and the Catamountain.
1839. Penny Cycl., XIII. 435/2. There is a black variety of the Jaguar … Felis nigra of Erxleben, and probably the Jaguarete of Marcgrave.
1852. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., I. vi. 230. This fact … prove[s] that the great jaguar of Terra Firma, like the jaguarete of Paraguay,… does not flee from man when it is dared to close combat.
