Animal adjectives

One of my regular library borrowers is a learned lady in her senior years.  She frequently challenges me with new words, quotes and snippets of poetry, sending me on quests to discover new treasures of literature and linguistics.  Her latest query was to look up the word musine.  This word means relating to the genus or to the subfamily of Muridae that includes it.  Musine is interchangeable with murine.  Both words are formed from the Latin for mouse mus or mur, and the Latin suffix -inus.  The latter has become -ine, via the French feminine form of -in, and is a suffix that forms adjectives from nouns, and means 'of, like, like that of, characteristic of, and having the nature of being'.

This discovery led me to realise that there are many other adjectives that come from the Latin words for various animals.  Many of which are used today to descibe someone's character or physical traits.  Here's a list of all the ones we could find.  See how many you recognise:-

1. Aquiline - of or like an eagle, curved, hooked like an eagle's beak, 1646, from the Latin aquila.
2. Avine - an archaic variation of avian; of, relating to, or characteristic of birds, from the Latin avis.
3. Bovine - of an ox or cow, 1817, from the French bovin(e) (1352), and from the Latin bovis.
4. Canine - of or like a dog, 1607, from the Latin canis.
5. Caprine - like a goat, or suggestive of a goat, from the Latin caper.
6. Elephantine - of or like an elephant, 1631, from the Latin elephantus.
7. Equine - of or like a horse, 1788, from the Latin equus.
8. Feline - of or like a cat, 1681, from the Latin felis.
9. Leonine - of or like a lion, c.1375 (found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), from the Old French leonin(e), and from the Latin leo.
10. Lupine - wolflike, fierce, 1660, from the Early French lupin(e), and the Latin lupus.
11. Ovine - of, being, or relating to sheep, from the Latin ovis.
12. Porcine - of pigs or hogs, before 1425, from the Old French porcin(e), and the Latin porcus.
13. Serpentine - of or like a serpent or snake, c.1408, from the Old French serpentin(e), and from the Latin serpens.
14. Ursine - of or relating to bears, bearlike, c.1550, from the Latin ursus.
15. Vulpine - of or like a fox, 1628, from the Latin vulpis.

So, there's fifteen animal adjectives.  Let me know if you can think of any more.

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (1988)
Websters Third New International Dictionary, unabridged (1993)


Juliana