aswail

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “"Native name". Which Indian language?”)

aswail (plural not attested)

1. (dated) The sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), an India bear.
   • 1832, William Henry Sykes, A Catalogue of the Mammalia and Birds Observed in Dukhun:

     An Aswail brought to me from the woods when quite young, and which lived some time in my possession, fed by choice almost exclusively upon roast mutton and fowl; rejecting all fruits and vegetables.

   • 1953, Dirk Pieter Erdbrink, A Review of Fossil and Recent Bears of the Old World, volume 1:

     […] mutilated parts of an Aswail from Ceylon together with parts of a three-toed Sloth […]

• aswail in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• Alawis