[noo, nyoo] 
) gnu. | 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. |
| gnu (nōō, nyōō) n. Either of two large African antelopes (Connochaetes gnou or C. taurinus) having a drooping mane and beard, a long tufted tail, and curved horns in both sexes. Also called wildebeest. [Probably from Dutch gnoe, from Xhosa i-ngu, white-tailed gnu, from San !nu, black wildebeest.] |
GNU 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.
[The Jargon File]
(1997-04-12)