phocine

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English

WOTD – 23 June 2011

Etymology

From Latin phōca (“seal”) (from Ancient Greek φώκη (phṓkē)) +‎ -ine.

Pronunciation

Adjective

phocine (comparative more phocine, superlative most phocine)

  1. Pertaining to a seal (or similar pinnipeds); seallike.
    • 28 December 1871, New York Daily Standard:
      He telegraphed to the whaling ports of New England, and sent messages to San Francisco and Alaska, to know if a group of sea lions and other specimens of the phocine tribe could be secured.
    • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part 1, page 44:
      […] she had already yanked out of me the coveted section [of the newspaper] and retreated to her mat near her phocine mamma.
    • 1987, William Boyd, The New Confessions:
      She walked over towards me with an odd elegance, big strides, like a champion girl swimmer, say; muscled but lean, with a phocine grace.

Translations

Noun

phocine (plural phocines)

  1. (zoology) A member of the subfamily Phocinae, comprising the "true" or "earless" seals.
    • 2007, Brian Keith Hall, Fins into Limbs, page 313:
      Phocines anchor their hands by flexing their fingers, digging them into the substrate, and then pulling their body forward by elbow and shoulder flexion.

Translations

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