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A wapiti is a very large deer that lives in North America. The males have huge branching and make a strange high whistling call in autumn when they are looking for a mate. Here is the thing that makes this word tricky, and it is worth knowing. Most Americans do not say 'wapiti'. They say 'elk'. But in Europe, 'elk' means a different animal — the one Americans call a 'moose'. So English speakers ended up talking past each other about deer. 'Wapiti' is the careful word that scientists, wildlife officers and writers use when they want to be clear which animal they mean. In ordinary conversation in the United States or Canada, though, people just say elk, and 'wapiti' can sound . The word came into English from Shawnee, a Native American language. So it is a good example of English borrowing an animal name from the people who lived with that animal first. It is pronounced roughly WOP-uh-tee, with the stress at the front.
加拿大馬鹿、美洲赤鹿（wapiti）；北美的大型鹿，美加當地口語多半直接叫 elk
組成Borrowed whole from Shawnee 'waapiti', meaning 'elk' or literally 'white rump' — the animal has a pale patch on its backside, which is how you spot one moving away from you in the forest.
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
wapitinoun/ˈwɑpɪti/
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The American elk (Cervus canadensis).
- Of deer there are in North America perhaps eight species : the black-tailed deer of the Pacific coast ; the mule-deer, and the white-tailed deer, of the Upper Missouri region and westward; the common deer of the United States east of the Missouri ; the wapiti of the northern and northwestern portions of the United States; one or two species of reindeer ; and the moose of the northern portion of the continent. […] Next to the moose, the wapiti or American elk (Cervus Canadensis) is the largest deer in North America.
- In connection with the work of the forest reserves I desire again to urge upon the Congress the importance of authorizing the President to set aside certain portions of these reserves or other public lands as game refuges for the preservation of the bison, the wapiti, and other large beasts once so abundant in our woods and mountains and on our great plains, and now tending toward extinction.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。