Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or resembling a peacock.
- adj. Resembling a peacock's tail in color, design, or iridescence.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to, resembling, or characteristic of a peacock; pavonian.
- Resembling a peacock's tail in iridescence.
- n. Peacock's-tail tarnish; the iridescent luster found on some ores and metallic products.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to the genus Pavo or its sub-family Pavoninæ, including the peafowl.
- adj. Possessing the coloring or iridescence of a peacock feather.
- adj. Resembling the tail of a peacock.
- n. Tarnish found on some ores and metals which resembles the tail feathers of a peacock.
- n. Any bird from the sub-family Pavoninæ.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Like, or pertaining to, the genus Pavo.
- adj. Characteristic of a peacock; resembling the tail of a peacock, as in colors; iridescent.
Etymologies
- Latin pāvōnīnus, from pāvō, peacock.
Examples
“Here Cooney calls Peter Osgood "pavonine", which my dictionary tells me means "of or resembling a peacock".”
“Scarce one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and shrill, genteel scream.”
“We made a general reconnaisance (December 27th) of a place whence specimens of pavonine quartz had come to hand.”
“It suggested Thecla's book, in which I had read it; and that, in turn, the great volume of pavonine leather the old Autarch had shown me when I had asked him the way to the garden, when he, having been told of me, supposed that I had arrived to replace him and would go to plead for Urth at once.”
The Urth of the New Sun
“She wore a pavonine brocade gown of amazing richness and raggedness, and as I watched her, the sun touched a rent just below her waist, turning the skin there to palest gold.”
The Shadow of the Torturer
“A quick twist took Agia out of her pavonine gown; it lay about her brown, dusty feet like a heap of precious stones.”
The Shadow of the Torturer
“These things with tales of sombre clouds and shining skies and whisperings of strange creatures dancing timidly in pavonine twilights, he traced upon the ivory keys of his instrument and the world was richer for a poet.”
“The bas-reliefs on this low screen are groups of peacocks and lions, two face to face on each panel, rich and fantastic beyond description, though not expressive of very accurate knowledge either of leonine or pavonine forms.”
“Some bird species restricted to this ecoregion or found in few other places in Amazonia include ashy-tailed swifts (an austral migrant, Chaetura andrei), blue-tufted starthroats (Heliomaster furcifer), pavonine quetzals (Pharomachrus pavoninus), white-eared jacamars (Galbalcyrhynchus leucotis), endemic ochre-striped antpittas (Grallaria dignissima), curassows (Mitu salvini), a terrestrial bird, and golden-winged tody-flycatchers (Todirostrum calopterum).”
“9 Scholz, Beweis, dass es eine Seelenwanderung bei den Thieren giebt. forces, whether those were a leonine magnanimity of courage, a vulpine subtlety of cunning, or a pavonine strut of vanity.”
The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pavonine’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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color (blue)
tiara's color lists rebuilt :)
( visual, colors, blue, descriptive, randomness )Blue, Sapphire, Turquoise, Aqua, Cobalt, Royal, Navy, Pavonated/Peacock, Azure, Egg, Water, Sea and 177 more...
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I didn't know there was a word for that!
interdigitate, aspheric, benthos, reptation, pastiche, pandiculate, agelast, obdormition, dysania, armscye, phosphene, etiolation and 57 more...
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Words of the day
The list of Wordnik words of the day.
panurgic, chapfallen, billingsgate, latration, witticaster, slitheroo, rux, crotchet, mirliton, arenose, ruelle, jane-of-apes and 76 more...
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animals strike curious poses
the asethetic of an animal... animal adjectives
corvine, pavonine, equine, bovine, musteline, myrmecine, ursine, apic, ranine, vulpine, vespine, pteropine and 20 more...

marky interesting. Apr 27, 2011
grant_barrett This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day. Nov 11, 2009
elsabet From the OED:
(a.) Resembling the neck or tail of a peacock in colouring or iridescence.
1991 R. CONDON Final Addiction 211
He was put down on a beach which overlooked a pavonine sea on which slumped the guilty tanker, Bergquist, impaled on its villainous reef. Jun 28, 2007