platypus

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Kinda like the platypus, a practical joke by God.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. noun A semiaquatic egg-laying mammal (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) of Australia and Tasmania, having a broad flat tail, webbed feet, and a snout resembling a duck's bill. Also called duckbill, duck-billed platypus.

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Examples (50)

  • I have encountered the opinion that the correct plurals of octopus and platypus are octopodes and platypodes, because that's how they are pluralized in Greek.
  • There was the pika and the platypus, the zebu and the stoat. —  F ;SF - vol 102 issue 04 - April 2002
  • Now, eucalyptus is as typically Australian as the platypus—but what may cause our botanist some dismay is that clumps of bamboo nestle between and near some of the tall trees. —  AUGUST, 1953 VOL
  • Upon the islands he found “Kanguroo” (his invariable spelling of the word), “womat” (sic), the duck-billed platypus, aculeated ant-eater, geese, black swan, gannets, shags, gulls, red bills, crows, parrakeets, snakes, seals, and sooty petrels, a profusion of wild life highly fascinating in itself, and, in the case of the animals, affording striking evidence of connection with the mainland at a comparatively recent period. —  The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders
  • Thankfully, this platypus has been humanely euthanized. —  wacotrib - Latest News Headlines
 

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Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. New Latin Platypūs, former genus name, from Greek platupous, flat-footed : platu-, platy- + pous, foot; see ped- in Indo-European roots.
 

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