夏にサファリパークへ行くと来場者は泳ぐゾウを見ることができます。
Summer safari park event lets visitors see elephants swimming in Japan
SUSONO, Shizuoka -- Fuji Safari Park has launched an elephant swimming display again this year, enabling visitors to see the hefty creatures swimming underwater in a special pool with clear acrylic walls.･･･
At a Laotian trainer's signal, the Asian elephants enter the pool and begin "elephant paddling" with their four legs, sometimes extending their noses into the air like snorkels. During a recent visit, a calf was seen following its mother in the water while another male elephant -- perhaps not a good swimmer -- pushed his hind legs against the bottom of the pool to move forward.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240730/p2a/00m/0li/002000c
今回取り上げるのはcalf /kǽf/ です。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』には「1.子牛 2.(ゾウ・クジラなどの)子 3.(氷山・氷河から浮流した)氷塊」とありました。
LDOCEには '1. Image of calf the part of the back of your leg between your knee and your ankle. 2 the baby of a cow, or of some other large animals, such as an elephant’と定義されています。
Etymonlineで語源を検索すると‘young of a bovine animal," Old English cealf (Anglian cælf) "young cow," from Proto-Germanic *kalbam (source also of Middle Dutch calf, Old Norse kalfr, German Kalb, Gothic kalbo), perhaps from PIE *gelb(h)-, from root *gel- "to swell," hence, "womb, fetus, young of an animal.’と説明されています。古英語の cealfから派生した単語です。
また，calfには「ふくらはぎ」という意味もあることはご存知の通りです。
ゾウの泳いでいる姿を見たことはないので一度実際に見てみたいと思いました。(Capricorn)
https://ameblo.jp/jyoji8/entry-12614605874.html
https://a30.hatenablog.com/entry/20120703/1341296534