ai.

n.  a species of South America sloth.

<While the Unau sloth has two toes on the front feet, the Ai sloth has three.  —Geetika Anand, “Inverted Life.”>

Ai.

n.  a stream in the Efate region of Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides).


n.  a village and island in Indonesia, with high cliffs popular for diving and reefs featuring “great quantities of soft coral in red, beige, purple, and orange hues” (SongLine Cruises of Indonesia).


n.  an island in the Marshall Islands.

Ai Ai.

(also AIAI.)  n.  a woeful cry; “alas! alas!”; in Greek mythology, Apollo’s inscription of sorrow on the hyacinth flower that sprang from the blood of the dying prince Hyacinthus.

<A grief-stricken Apollo raised a purple flower from [Hyacinthus’] blood, on which the letters Ai, Ai were traced.  This was so that his cry of woe would have existence on earth forever.  As our native variety of hyacinth had no trace of these mystic letters, our earlier botanists called it Hyacinthus nonscriptus, or “not written on.”  —WorkingForWildlife.org.>

ai ai ai.

interj.  a howling sound.

<Ai!  Ai!  Ai!  There’s a Homeric yawp; but what’s the use of howling? who will hear and what will change?  —William H. Gass, The Tunnel.>

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