Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A medieval collection of stories providing physical and allegorical descriptions of real or imaginary animals along with an interpretation of the moral significance each animal was thought to embody. A number of common misconceptions relating to natural history were preserved in these popular accounts.
- n. A modern version of such a collection.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A fighter with wild beasts in the ancient Roman amphitheater.
- n. A name formerly sometimes given to a book treating of animals.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A treatise on beasts; esp., one of the moralizing or allegorical beast tales written in the Middle Ages.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a medieval book (usually illustrated) with allegorical and amusing descriptions of real and fabled animals
Etymologies
- From French bestiaire, from Latin bēstia ("beast, animal") (whence English beast). (Wiktionary)
- Medieval Latin bēstiārium, from Latin bēstia, beast. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And according to Medieval Folklore, an early Syrian [bestiary] is quite explicit: The unicorn approaches the virgin, 'throwing himself upon her.”
“This bestiary is included in the second section of 45 Mercy Street, first published in 1976, two years after Sexton’s suicide.”
Bestiary U.S.A. : Rigoberto González : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
“So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do.”
“Ross: A bestiary is a "book of beasts," a collection of stories giving allegorical descriptions of animal behavior.”
The Huffington Post: Steve Leveen: E-books: What Would da Vinci Say? Ross King's New Reading
“The bestiary really was the key element of the manuscript that intrigued me the most, not just because it has all these unpublished texts that are scholarly, but a bestiary is a book that is concerned with the symbolic meanings of animals," Gwara said.”
University of South Carolina library's rare book display to get medieval text
“Modern Jaguars still belong to what Roland Barthes calls the bestiary of power’, but they have evolved from a primitive to a classical form, a process first described in Barthes’s essay on the new Citron DS, written when it made its first dramatic appearance at the Paris Motor Show in 1955.”
“Once I'd waded through some rather peculiar photos and considered changing my plans from going to the zoo to seeing an altogether different kind of bestiary, I was quickly interrogating people about places to go and things to do.”
“Arguably a step better than the bestiary of existing capital-like debt at the top of this note.”
“Timothy Beal examined the monsters of the Hebrew Bible and found a bestiary of terrifying creatures.”
The Huffington Post: W. Scott Poole: Accepting The Monster Into Your Heart
“** As part of the program, this year's students will illustrate the fantastic beasts in our bestiary, so be sure to return at the end of the summer to see what they've done!”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bestiary’.
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Collections
Have I made this list before? Has someone else collected these words together? I can't remember, so I'm just going to start storing some things here.
collection, omnium-gatherum, sylloge, antiphonary, anthology, bestiary, cartulary, dossier, sampler, assortment, variety, hodgepodge and 65 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
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i heart words
autarkic, cline, aver, limn, gossamer, ochre, fulminate, twee, augur, mollify, maw, ecumenical and 113 more...
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Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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new words!
errata, corrigenda, lacuna, inculcate, chiaroscuro, temerity, folderol, juggernaut, diadem, alacrity, exegesis, portmanteau and 97 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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list.
à gogo, camaïeu, écorché, zoölogical garden, zoopraxiscope, zeitgeber, zeugma, zeitgeist, heterosis, craniopagus, taxicabriolet, medial capital and 97 more...
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wreckingball's Words
reprehensible, problematize, crepuscular, deleterious, pestilent, strumpet, draggletail, interrobang, meretricious, systematize, schadenfreude, capricious and 443 more...
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 151 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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bosporian's Words
corybantiasm, delphic, oneiromancy, bibliothecary, wyrd, lygophilia, cimmerian, agathodaemon, crepuscular, ignosis, peisithanatos, alpenglow and 94 more...
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Flora and Fauna
poa annua, pooka, vole, bestiary, popple, turgor, starling, sharpy, copse, coreopsis, clove, corvid and 348 more...
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Biology
malacological, cladistic, phenetic, phylogenetic, taxonomy, bathypelagic, superfamily, superorder, infraorder, binomen, binominal, quorum sensing and 199 more...
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the name of the rose
pleasing words I encounter whilst reading umberto eco's novel of the same name.
matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, compline, usurper, simoniac, heresiarch, malefactor and 230 more...
Tweets
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