Meaning

noun any of several fleet black-and-white striped African equines

originFirst attested in 1600. Borrowed from Italian zebra, from Portuguese zebra, zebro (“zebra”), from Old Galician-Portuguese enzebro, ezebra, azebra (“wild ass”), from earlier cebrario (882), ezebrario (897), from Vulgar Latin *eciferus, from Latin equiferus (“wild horse”) (Pliny), from equus (“horse”) + ferus (“wild”). While the word was traditionally pronounced with a long vowel in the first…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0