Some Words I Love: Animal Adjectives

You might know the word bovine. It means “coming from a cow,” or “related to a cow,” or “affecting cows,” or, more commonly, just “like a cow.”

You almost certainly know the words canine (dog-like), and feline (cat-like), but do you know all these animal adjectives?

• equine (horse-like)
• vulpine (fox-like)
• ursine (bear-like)
• asinine (donkey-like)
• leonine (lion-like)
• porcine (pig-like)
  
• serpentine (snake-like)
• piscine (fish-like)
• lupine (wolf-like)
• ovine (meaning sheep-like, not egg-like as you might expect)

There are a lot more. Some of these are uncommonly used.

• anatine means duck-like
• anserine means goose-like
• aquiline means eagle-like, most often used to refer to a nose, specifically a nose shaped like the hooked beak of an eagle
• bufotenine means frog-like
• caballine means horse-like
• caprine means goat-like
• columbine means dove-like
• cygnine means swan-like
• delphine means dolphin-like
• galline means chicken-like
• hircine means goat-like, specifically in the sense of smelling like a goat
• corvine means crow-like
• murine means mouse- or rat-like, as in “a murine plague” (which makes you wonder how it became the name of a brand of eye-drops)
• myrmechophagine means anteater-like
• cancrine (not spelled “cancerine,” but “cancrine”) means crab-like, but the word is usually used to refer to palindromes (since crabs usually walk sideways to either the left or the right), or to musical palindromes such as Bach’s Crab Canon (see Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid)
• cervine means deer-like
• elapine means snake-like; not to be confused with elaphine
• elaphine means stag-like; not to be confused with elephantine (the meaning of “elephantine” should be obvious)
• hominine means human-like
• leporine means rabbit-like, as in Lepus (the Hare), a constellation, or Night of the Lepus, a 1972 science fiction horror film about mutated rabbits
• musteline means badger-like (the word also pertains to weasels, ferrets, skunks, etc.)
• myrmecine means ant-like
• pavonine means peacock-like
• pediculine means louse-like
• pteropine means bat-like
• rusine also means deer-like
• taurine means bull-like (Red Bull energy drink, which isn’t red, contains the amino acid taurine)
• turdine (yes, really) means thrush-like

Then there are some animal words that don’t end in “-ine” but in “-ian” instead:

• chelonian means turtle-like or tortoise-like
• ophidian means snake-like
• saurian means lizard-like
• simian means monkey-like or ape-like
• eusuchian means alligator-like

There are more — far more. As for animal-related words that aren’t adjectives — you probably know what an aviary is, but how about an apiary? (And the word avian, as opposed to apian). What about hirsute? And don’t get me started on collective nouns (prides of lions, parliaments of owls, and all those delightful words!)

The Doctor Who episode “The Unicorn and the Wasp” just supplied me with another word: vespiform. It was apparently a fairly obscure word before it became the name of a fictional alien race. It means, naturally, “wasp-shaped,” while vespine means “like a hornet or wasp.”

If you want to find more, there are collections of these words online; folks have assembled pages listing hundreds of them. Google “animal adjectives.” It’s a good way to learn a little Latin and Greek!

Ann Arbor, Michigan
March 30, 2007