Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Biology Intermediate in characteristics between two similar or related taxonomic groups.
- adj. Closely adhering or joined; embracing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Kissing.
- In biology, touching or intermediate between two or more groups; inosculant; intergrading: said of genera, families, etc., which connect or link others together.
- Adhering closely; embracing: applied to certain creeping animals, as caterpillars.
- n. In mathematics, the invariant whose vanishing signifies that the quantics all vanish, and that there is a syzygetic relation between the tangential qualitics.
Wiktionary
- adj. Kissing; hence, touching or meeting; clinging.
- adj. zoology Adhering closely; applied to certain creeping animals, such as caterpillars.
- adj. biology Intermediate between two genera, groups, families, etc., and having some of the characteristics of each; interosculant.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Kissing; hence, meeting; clinging.
- adj. (Zoöl.) Adhering closely; embracing; -- applied to certain creeping animals, as caterpillars.
- adj. (Biol.) Intermediate in character, or on the border, between two genera, groups, families, etc., of animals or plants, and partaking somewhat of the characters of each, thus forming a connecting link; interosculant.
Etymologies
- Latin osculans, osculantis, present participle of osculari to kiss. See osculate. (Wiktionary)
- Latin ōsculāns, ōsculant-, present participle of ōsculārī, to kiss; see osculate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As some few of the old and intermediate forms have transmitted to the present day descendants but little modified, these constitute our so-called osculant or aberrant species.”
“A few old and intermediate parent-forms having occasionally transmitted to the present day descendants but little modified, will give to us our so-called osculant or aberrant groups.”
“A few {429} old and intermediate parent-forms having occasionally transmitted to the present day descendants but little modified, will give to us our so-called osculant or aberrant groups.”
“OsculantForms or groups apparently intermediate between and connecting other groups are said to be osculant.”
Glossary of the Principal Scientific Terms Used in the Present Volume
“-- - Forms or groups apparently intermediate between and connecting other groups are said to be osculant.”
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Better Words
Extremely fond of adjectives. To conquer phlegmatic speech and indolent phrases.
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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