pesukarhu

Compound of pesu (“washing”) +‎ karhu (“bear”); calque of Swedish tvättbjörn and German Waschbär (“raccoon”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpesuˌkɑrhu/,
• Rhymes: -ɑrhu
• Hyphenation^(key): pesu‧karhu

Finnish Wikipedia has an article on:

pesukarhu

Wikipedia ^fi

pesukarhu

1. raccoon, Procyon lotor
2. raccoon (any species in the genus Procyon)

A working group for naming mammals proposed in 2008 that the raccoon be named supi in Finnish because a) all other species in the genus have supi in their name (although the genus is called pesukarhut), b) the raccoon is not a karhu (“bear”), and c) the term supi has been used for raccoon fur in Finland and for the animal by Finnish Americans. Opponents claim that this proposed change would be confusing because the term pesukarhu is unambiguous and raccoon dog is supikoira in Finnish and is often called supi in colloquial speech. As a result, supi has not gained popularity as the Finnish name for the raccoon.

• supi (disputed, see "Usage notes" above)

• “pesukarhu”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03