jalopeura

jalo (“(dialectal) large; (standard) noble”) +‎ peura (“deer”); one of the many words first known to have been written down by Mikael Agricola when translating the New Testament into Finnish in the 16th century. The word was originally used of elks (moose) or other similar animals. The semantic shift may be motivated by astrology; a constellation, identified as representing an elk in northern Europe, may have been associated with a lion further south.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈjɑloˌpeu̯rɑ/, [ˈjɑ̝lo̞ˌpe̞u̯rɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -eurɑ
• Syllabification^(key): ja‧lo‧peu‧ra
• Hyphenation^(key): jalo‧peura

jalopeura (archaic)

1. (biblical) lion
   • 1933/1938, Pyhä Raamattu [The Holy Bible], Helsinki: Suomen Pipliaseura, Pietarin ensimmäinen kirje (1 Peter) 5:8:

     Teidän vastustajanne, perkele, käy ympäri niinkuin kiljuva jalopeura, etsien, kenen hän saisi niellä

     (...) your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour

Often used together with the epithet kiljuva, as it appeared in the Finnish Bible up to the 1938 translation.

• leijona

• “jalopeura”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023