ursine

See also: Ursine

English edit

WOTD – 22 December 2007

Mid 16th century, from Latin ursīnus, adjectival form of ursus (“bear”).

ursine (comparative more ursine, superlative most ursine)

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of bears.
- 1832, Godfrey Mundy, chapter VI, in Pen and Pencil Sketches, Being the Journal of a Tour in India‎^[1], volume 1, London: John Murray, page 320:
  The British chief having undergone the ursine embrace of the Seikh monarch, the whole cavalcade proceeded towards the town.
- 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 8, in Billy Budd‎^[2], London: Constable & Co.:
  […] the old man's eccentricities, sometimes bordering on the ursine, repelled the juniors […]
- 2004, in Donald G. Lindburg and Karen Baragona (eds.), Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation, Berkeley: University of California Press, Part Two, Introduction, p. 77, [3]
  […] we noted that a preponderance of the evidence supports an ursine origin for the giant panda.
Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the bear subfamily Ursinae.
- 2004, in Donald G. Lindburg and Karen Baragona (eds.), Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation, Berkeley: University of California Press, Part Two, Introduction, p. 37, [4]
(entomology, of caterpillars) Covered in stiff bristles.