Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A cold-blooded, smooth-skinned vertebrate of the class Amphibia, such as a frog or salamander, that characteristically hatches as an aquatic larva with gills. The larva then transforms into an adult having air-breathing lungs.
- n. An animal capable of living both on land and in water.
- n. An aircraft that can take off and land on either land or water.
- n. A tracked or wheeled vehicle that can operate both on land and in water.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to amphibia in any sense; specifically, pertaining to the class Amphibia. See amphibious, 2.
- n. An animal of the class Amphibia.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Having two natures.
- adj. Pertaining to the Amphibia.
- n. An animal of the Amphibia; any four-legged vertebrate that does not have amniotic eggs, living both on land and in water.
- n. A vehicle which can operate on land and water.
- adj. Of or relating to the amphibians Amphibia.
- adj. Capable of operating on both land and water amphibious.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to the Amphibia.
- n. (Zoöl.) One of the Amphibia.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a flat-bottomed motor vehicle that can travel on land or water
- n. cold-blooded vertebrate typically living on land but breeding in water; aquatic larvae undergo metamorphosis into adult form
- adj. relating to or characteristic of animals of the class Amphibia
- n. an airplane designed to take off and land on water
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek ἀμφίβιον (amphibion), from ἀμφί (amphi, "of both kinds") + βίος (bios, "life") (Wiktionary)
- From New Latin Amphibia, class name, from Greek, neuter pl. of amphibios, amphibious : amphi-, amphi- + bios, life. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word amphibian comes from the Greek amphibios meaning "both lives".”
“As you erudite people well know, the word amphibian comes from the Greek amphi and bios, meaning to live a double life.”
“Moore says what's unique about this Australian amphibian is its way of breeding.”
Voice of America: Hunt for Missing Frogs Leaps Across 5 Continents
“Colombia is one of the worlds richest countries in amphibian diversity with more than 583 species.”
“These sorts of inductions can occur in amphibian creatures simply by placing the animals in water that has been previously used by their predators!”
“A black, non-troglomorphic amphibian from the karst of Slovenia: Proteus anguinus parkelj n. ssp.”
“But they say decades of data show only that some correlation exists between rising air temperatures and Latin American amphibian extinctions-and that data are well short of proving causation.”
“And these planes are properly called amphibian planes because they can land and take off both from the sea and the land, as they have these special landing gear which retract into the body of the aircraft.”
“The amphibian was a mass of muscle, so wide that the mind made the creature shorter than it was.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘amphibian’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
Mirrored Vowels
Rules:
• The word must have an even number of vowels.
• There must be four or more vowels; thus, at minimum, an A-A-A-A or A-B-B-A pattern.
• The vowels must appear in a mir...feminine, solicitor, caruncular, repackager, semiprimes, fetishises, decomposer, demonlover, recomposer, sepultures, lipotropic, colesterol and 385 more...
-
Society
social work, coverage, affiliate, social security, ambulance, clinic, health, insurance, emergency, mail, letter, envelope and 101 more...
-
Underwaterritory
When you're underwater, what do you see or experience? Let's dive...
(Here's a cute little related list called Fishful Thinking...)underwater, curglaff, submarine, underwater habitat, diving bell, paravane, bottom trawling, sediment traps, torpedo, mines, shipwreck, sonar and 214 more...
-
Lively Words
quick, quicksilver, cwic, quitch grass, cwice, vivify, viviparous, viper, weever, wyvern, viand, victual and 148 more...
-
amphi-
both; around
amphibian, amphitheater, amphitheatre, amphitrite, amphibiotic, amphistylar, amphithecium, amphibolic, amphibology, amphoteric
-
The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
-
SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
-
parody's Words
defenestrate, behemoth, floss, macchiato, glom, emu, alpaca, crocheted, ampersand, charade, conflate, salacious and 193 more...
-
Necessary?
"Words are very..."
The above was the original description for this list. Unfortunately, it doesn't convey much about the list contents.
I'm leaving you to draw your own conclusions abo...supererogation, fruitcake, unbeknownst, melifluous, bane, cavy, unnecessary, lyrical, question, undertow, weapon, arduous and 200 more...
-
GRE
Taisha GRE Bible
archaic, archetype, archipelago, architect, archive, arctic, ardor, arduous, argot, arid, armory, arrest and 289 more...
-
Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
-
Inner B
Words with the letter b within the word, not just as the initial or last letter.
remember, maybe, able, unable, nimble, cable, reusable, thimble, cymbal, capable, tremble, enable and 143 more...
-
Behr Paint Colors
Names used for Behr Paints in spring of 2008. I'm curious to see if Behr gives the same colors different names in other years, so I've tagged each color with its Behr product number. It turns out t...
billowy clouds, soft lace, victorian pearl, china cup, soft muslin, bleached shell, belgian cream, chamois cloth, natural linen, popped corn, divine pleasure, vanilla delight and 283 more...
-
1
horizon, echo, undulation, resonance, reflection, acoustic, swoosh, distant, glide, interspace, marbles, radiant and 144 more...
-
ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for amphibian.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.