Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Untamed; feral.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Wild; in a state of nature; never having been domesticated.
- Malignant; noxious: as, aferine disease.
- n. A wild beast; a beast of prey.
Wiktionary
- adj. Pertaining to wild animals; feral.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Wild; untamed; savage.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. wild and menacing
Etymologies
- From Latin ferīnus, from fera ("wild animal"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin ferīnus, from fera, wild animal; see feral. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Arvia ustentu, vatuva ferine feitu, heris vinu heri puni.”
“Both kinds I call solitary instances, or ferine, to borrow a term from astronomers.”
“There was a silence of some seconds, and his yellow ferine gaze met hers strangely.”
“It was ferine and spectral, and so tremendously violent, that the long attorney, expecting nothing of the sort, was thrown out of his balance against the chimneypiece.”
“When the riser halted and the portal reopened, she was greeted by a vista of tangled alien rain forest, wondrous aromas, and ferine screeching.”
“Who, within his inner consciousness, does not feel that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern, adamantine bonds of morality and decorum?”
“In that moment, she was a throw-back of a million years, and through her veins fumed the ferine blood of her paleolithic forebears.”
“This does not mean that the result in either case is an all around and consistent rehabilitation of the ferine or barbarian habit of mind and body.”
The theory of the leisure class; an economic study of institutions
“The result is rather a one-sided return to barbarism or to the feroe natura -- a rehabilitation and accentuation of those ferine traits which make for damage and desolation, without a corresponding development of the traits which would serve the individual's self-preservation and fullness of life in a ferine environment.”
The theory of the leisure class; an economic study of institutions
“The material used, whether brute or human, is subjected to careful selection and discipline, in order to secure and accentuate certain aptitudes and propensities which are characteristic of the ferine state, and which tend to obsolescence under domestication.”
The theory of the leisure class; an economic study of institutions
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ferine’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Verba Silvestria
Words of the Woods or Words of the Wilds
sylvestral, sylvester, silvester, silvestrian, sylvestrian, silvatic, sylvatic, silvan, sylvan, silva, sylva, nemorose and 108 more...
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Wild or Savage
English and Latin adjectives meaning wild or savage
torvid, torvidus, asper, atrox, efferatus, efferus, ferinus, ferox, ferus, ferine
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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Vocab
All the words I've come across whose definitions I did not know then.
aberration, abrogate, abscond, abstruse, acolyte, actuate, adulation, advert, aggrandize, aggro, ague, alimony and 273 more...
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Words for a Rainy Day
A passionate collection of phrases
mercurial, barathrum, patency, doctrinaire, blatherskite, pother, crepuscular, prescind, estivation, anomie, avolition, cathexis and 20 more...
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