You searched for: “tapir”
taper, taper, tapir
taper (TAY puhr) (noun)
A tall slender candle; a waxed wick used for lighting candles: "She put a single red taper in the holder on the mantle."

"He used the waxed taper to light the taper on the mantle."

taper (TAY puhr) (verb)
1. A graduated narrowing of something towards one end: "You can see many leaves that taper to the ends."
2. To diminish or to become smaller: "Her voice began to taper off as she was reading the long story."
tapir (TAY puhr, tuh PIR) (noun)
Any of several large, chiefly nocturnal, odd-toed ungulates of the genus Tapirus of tropical America, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra, related to the horse and the rhinoceros, and having a heavy body, short legs, and a long, fleshy, flexible upper lip: "On our expedition to Sumatra, we took several pictures of a tapir in its natural habitat."

While we were camping out on the Malay Peninsula, we heard a noise outside our tent and when we used a lighted taper to see what was going on, we were surprised to see a tapir near the tent entrance and then our sight of the animal tapered off as it ran away.

This entry is located in the following unit: Confusing Words Clarified: Group T; Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs, Synonyms, Polysemes, etc. + (page 1)