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noun

Onager n. (pl. L. onagri, E. onagers)

(Rom. Antiq.) A military engine acting like a sling, which threw stones from a bag or wooden bucket, and was operated by machinery.

(Zool.) A wild ass of central Asia, especially the koulan (Equus hemionus syn. Equus hemippus syn. Equus onager, formely Asinus onager).

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Etymology of 'Onager'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Onager" Quotes from Famous Books

... closely allied to, if not identical with, the wild ass of Assyria (Equus hemippus). The Hon. Charles Murray, who presented one of the pair in the London Zoological Gardens in 1862, wrote the following account of it to Dr. Sclater: "The ghour or kherdecht of the Persians is doubtless the onager of the ancients. Your specimen was caught when a foal on the range of mountains which stretch from Kermanshah on the west in a south-easterly direction to Shiraz; these are inhabited by several wild and half-independent tribes, the most powerful of which are the Buchtzari. The ghour ...

— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale