a 1 a 1 r 1 d 2 v 4 a 1 r 1 k 5
8 letters · 16 points in Scrabble
Meaning
noun nocturnal burrowing mammal of the grasslands of Africa that feeds on termites; sole extant representative of the order Tubulidentata
originBorrowed from Afrikaans aardvark (now rare), erdvark, from aarde (“earth”, from Middle Dutch aerde) + vark (“pig”, from Middle Dutch varken). Early European colonists in South Africa noticed that the animal was similar to a pig, while aarde hints at the animal's habit of burrowing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0