animal
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈæ.nɪ.məl/
ipa: /ˈæ.nə.məl/
ipa: /ˈæ.nɪ.məl/
note: Indic
ipa: /əˈnɪ.məl/
rhymes: -ænɪməl
rhymes: -ænəməl
rhymes: -ɪməl
Etymology: From Middle English animal, from Latin animālis, from either anima (“breath, spirit”) or animus. Originally distinct from the noun, it became associated with attributive use of the noun and is now indistinguishable from it.
Senses: examples: text: animal instincts
text: The season has been most unfavourable to animal life; and I, who am merely animal, have suffered much by it.
ref: 1783 June 3, William Cowper, “To the Rev. William Bull”, in Private Correspondence of William Cowper, Esq. with Several of His Most Intimate Friends. […], volume I, London: […] Henry Colburn, […], and Simpkin and Marshall, […], published 1824, page 266:
text: […]—according to Sanssure, Abbé Fortis, Bruckenman, Jameson, Dr. Richardson, &c. &c. both animal and vegetal remains have been detected in Basalt and Wacke.
ref: 1809, William Martin, Outlines of an Attempt to Establish a Knowledge of Extraneous Fossils, on Scientific Principles. […], Macclesfield, Cheshire: […] J. Wilson. Sold by the Author, […]; J. White, […], and Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], page 141:
text: The body was covered with soft hair, and though undoubtedly human, it was very animal in its instincts and ways.
ref: 1890, [Lena,] Lady Login, “Lucknow”, in Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, London: W. H. Allen & Co., […], page 78:
text: The unsatisfactory material at our command, however, renders it difficult to determine why we cannot prove a worship of a living incarnation for every deity who is represented on the monuments in a form either wholly or partially animal. We must wonder why, for example, the sacred hawk or hawks of Horus at Edfu (who never has human form) are scarcely mentioned.
ref: 1918, W[ilhelm] Max Müller, “[Egyptian Mythology] Worship of Animals and Men”, in Louis Herbert Gray, George Foot Moore, editors, The Mythology of All Races […], volume XII (Egyptian; Indo-Chinese), Boston, Mass.: Marshall Jones Company, page 167:
text: He looked down at the tangled wet hair, the wild, bare, animal shoulders.
ref: 1913–1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”, in England My England and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, published 24 October 1922, →OCLC, page 243:
text: I thought: if pain is the thing shared by all living creatures, then I’m no longer human or animal or vegetal; I am unplugged from the tick of metabolism; I am mineral.
ref: 2012, Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis, New York, N.Y.: The Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 216:
text: In any case, the argument the inhabitants of these parts would have advanced as their strongest one against the so-called chastity belt would, of course, have been that living species, whether animal or vegetative, were made the way they were for an obvious reason.
ref: 2015 August, Joseph M. Luguya, “Part 1: The Demented Scholar”, in Humans: The Untold Story of Adam and Eve and their Descendants, volume one (The Thesis), Silver Spring, Md.: Original Books, →ISBN, page 46:
synonyms: beastly
bestial
coordinate_terms: vegetal
glosses: Of or relating to animals.
examples: text: animal passions
text: But the line also distills pop culture’s big commandment about sex to its animal essence: If you’re not screwing somebody, you’re nobody.
ref: 2016 August 26, Spencer Kornhaber, “Britney Spears Finds Grace in the Hook-Up on 'Glory'”, in The Atlantic:
synonyms: animalistic
beastly
bestial
untamed
wild
glosses: Raw, base, unhindered by social codes.
examples: text: To explain what activated the flesh, ‘animal spirits’ were posited, superfine fluids which shuttled between the mind and the vitals, conveying messages and motion.
ref: 2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin, published 2004, page 47:
glosses: Pertaining to the spirit or soul; relating to sensation or innervation.
glosses: Excellent.
Derived terms: animal-industrial complex
animalize
animally
animalness
animal pole
animal spirits
humanimal
nonanimal
semianimal
superanimal
vegetoanimal
Related terms: Wiktionary appendix of terms relating to animals