either of two stocky, oxlike antelopes of the genus Connochaetes, the silver-gray, white-bearded C. taurinus of the eastern African plain and the black, white-tailed C. gnou of central South Africa: recently near extinction, the South African gnu is now protected.
Tony's cohorts included an elephant, a kangaroo and a gnu.
We had been getting skunked because the gnu are crossing north to south.
The weather has changed and the gnu have lost the mad resolve to cross.
British Dictionary definitions for gnu
gnu
/nuː/
noun (pl) gnus, gnu
1.
either of two sturdy antelopes, Connochaetes taurinus (brindled gnu) or the much rarer C. gnou (white-tailed gnu), inhabiting the savannas of Africa, having an oxlike head and a long tufted tail Also called wildebeest
Word Origin
C18: from Xhosa nqu
Word Origin and History for gnu
n.
1777, gnoo, from Dutch gnoe, used by German traveler Georg Forster (1754-1794) to render Hottentot i-ngu "wildebeest," from Southern Bushman !nu: (in which ! and : represent clicks).
gnu in Technology
body, project /g*noo/ 1. A recursive acronym: "GNU's Not Unix!". The Free Software Foundation's project to provide a freely distributable replacement for Unix. The GNU Manifesto was published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal but the GNU project started a year and a half earlier when Richard Stallman was trying to get funding to work on his freely distributable editor, Emacs. Emacs and the GNU C compiler, gcc, two tools designed for this project, have become very popular. GNU software is available from many GNU archive sites. See also Hurd. 2. John Gilmore. [Jargon File] (1997-04-12)