structural:reformatting, structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:tone, information:extraction, linguistic:voice_change
Etymology

The English name "zebra" derives from Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. Its origins may lie in the Latin equiferus, meaning "wild horse". Equiferus appears to have entered into Portuguese as ezebro or zebro, which was originally used for a legendary equine in the wilds of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. In 1591, Italian explorer Filippo Pigafetta recorded "zebra" being used to refer to the African animals by Portuguese visitors to the continent. In ancient times, the zebra was called hippotigris ("horse tiger") by the Greeks and Romans.

The word zebra was traditionally pronounced with a long initial vowel, but over the course of the 20th century the pronunciation with the short initial vowel became the norm in British English. The pronunciation with a long initial vowel remains standard in American English.