a tall African animal with a very long neck, long legs, and dark marks on its coat Topics Animalsb2长颈鹿 Word Originlate 16th cent.: from French girafe, Italian giraffa, or Spanish and Portuguese girafa, based on Arabic zarāfa. The animal was known in Europe in the medieval period, and isolated instances of names for it based on the Arabic are recorded in Middle English, when it was commonly called the camelopard.