Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or belonging to the Pinnipedia, a suborder of carnivorous aquatic mammals that includes the seals, walruses, and similar animals having finlike flippers as organs of locomotion.
- n. A mammal of the suborder Pinnipedia.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Fin-footed, in any sense; having feet like fins or flippers. Specifically Having flippers, as a seal; pinnigrade; belonging to the Pinnigrada or Pinnipedia, as a mammal.
- n. A member of the Pinnipedes or Pinnipedia: opposed to fissiped.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various large marine mammals belonging to the superfamily (formerly conisederd a suborder) Pinnipedia comprising walruses, eared seals and earless seals.
- adj. Pertaining to such a mammal.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One of the Pinnipedia; a seal.
- n. One of the Pinnipedes.
WordNet 3.0
- n. aquatic carnivorous mammal having a streamlined body specialized for swimming with limbs modified as flippers
Etymologies
- From New Latin Pinnipedia, order name : Latin pinna, feather; see pinna + Latin pēs, ped-, foot; see -ped.
Examples
“He also said sometimes the cast will be distracted by whales or seals when filming (he totally used the word pinniped!).”
“How many extant pinniped species remain to be described?”
“Either way, this pinniped was understandably surprised to find us on his turf.”
“Then again, I'm positively balmy myself, so I was prepared to perambulate with a pack of pinniped pals.”
“On Monday, more than 400 people came to see Silent Knight during the center's visiting hours, fascinated by the plight of the wounded pinniped, said Jeff Boehm, the center's executive director.”
The Huffington Post: San Francisco Sees Rise In Sea Lion Shootings
“Swimming frantically with a distinctly non-pinniped stroke, we quickly realized who the oil-sodden grotesquerie paddling to shore was.”
“But no rule of surf etiquette said I had to yield to a pinniped.”
“Any female sea lion/fur seal that comes ashore on his little fiefdom is added to the harem, even if it means biting her and tossing her around a sort of pinniped apache dance or sitting on her to get her to stay put.”
“This complex interaction between climate and pinniped survival has a pronounced effect on major commercial fisheries in the eastern Bering Sea under US jurisdiction.”
“It probably ran like a dog on land very unlike a modern pinniped but spent much of its time in water, where it swam like a dog, unlike either of the two styles adopted respectively by modern seals and sea lions.”
Lists
‘pinniped’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
skipvia ♩
His clothes are loud, but never square...
♩ Apr 26, 2009
rolig *reciting:*
"We seek him here, we seek him there …" Apr 25, 2009
bilby How about this guy? Apr 25, 2009
sionnach Yes, but "The Scarlet Finfoot" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "The Scarlet Pinniped". Apr 24, 2009
rolig Sometimes I wish English didn't fancy things up with Latinate words. How much better it would be if we called these animals finfoots. Apr 24, 2009
seanahan see puijila, which is the first time I'd ever heard this word. Apr 24, 2009