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  1. potto love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of several small nocturnal African primates of the genera Perodicticus and Arctocebus, having a pointed snout, large eyes and ears, and a stumplike index finger and tail.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A small West African lemuroid quadruped, Perodicticus potto. See Perodicticus.
  2. n. The kinkajou, Cercoleptes caudivolvulus. See cut under kinkajou.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A small primate, of the subfamily Perodictictinae, from the tropical rainforests of Africa.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A nocturnal mammal (Perodictius potto) of the Lemur family, found in West Africa. It has rudimentary forefingers. Called also aposoro, and bush dog.
  2. n. The kinkajou.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. arboreal fruit-eating mammal of tropical America with a long prehensile tail
  2. n. a kind of lemur

Etymologies

  1. Of Niger-Congo origin; perhaps akin to Wolof pata, a tailless monkey, or Akan (Twi) apɔsɔ, a fierce monkeylike animal. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “There are small primate populations of potto Perodicticus potto, western black and white colobus Colobus polykomos, red colobus Colobus badius (EN), diana monkey Cercopithecus diana (EN), lesser bushbaby Galago senegalensi and chimpanzees Pan troglodytes (EN) which are close neighbors of the tool-using population in Bossou.”

    Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire

  • “I would keep it in a grotto, if I only had a potto, and I'd feed it on risotto”

    I bin to London Zoo again

  • “The teeth of the labyrinthodon, the hand of the potto, the whalebone of whales, the wings of birds, the climbing tendrils of some plants, &c. have also been adduced as instances of structures, the origin and production of which are probably due rather to considerable modifications than to minute increments.”

    On the Genesis of Species

  • “The missing forefinger to the hand of the potto [299] would appear at first sight to have been lost by some such mishap.”

    Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin

  • “Check out photos of a newborn potto, baby orangutan and some playful tiger cubs.”

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

  • “They are lotto-potto in Italy spending a reported 27-billion euros a year on trying to beat the balls.”

    euronews

  • “To these species of monkeys, one can add black and white colubus; gray cheeked Mangabey, red tailed monkey, bus baby, potto and olive baboon.”

    TravelPod.com Recent Updates

  • “_guiso de potto_ which one gets in any _rancho_ in the Banda”

    The Purple Land

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hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. procyonid
  1. lemur

reverse dictionary (6)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. perodicticus
  1. poto
  1. bush dog
  1. kinkajou
  1. potto
  1. angwantibo

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. animal

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Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘potto’.

Comments

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  • chained_bear You mean the ad-links that say "2 Rules Lost Me 30 Pounds," "Care Free Palm Trees," and "Christian Mom Makes $5K/M"? Apr 15, 2009

  • bilby Whatever it is, it's impressive. I'm guessing it's medical as it has a box-that-goes-ping on the the left side. Apr 15, 2009

  • sionnach Or, for that matter, what's with this image that I get on this page as a google_ad. Some kind of hideous Norwegian contraption; but for what exactly? Holding people down while they are forced to listen to their handlers read "Hunger"? Or some more devious porpoise still?

    scary norwegian device Apr 15, 2009

  • bilby What's with the weird Colonel Sanders manga on image search? KFP? Apr 15, 2009

  • Prolagus See also user perodicticus (lowercase, alas). Apr 15, 2009

  • sionnach Another animal deemed "inoffensive", though this time it's by Patrick O'Brian, and not by Weirdnet.

    ImageSearch has way too many images of skulls and sweaty singers, and not nearly enough cute foxy faces, so c_b's image links are particularly welcome. Apr 15, 2009

  • chained_bear For images, click here and here.

    See also awantibo or agwantibo. Mar 17, 2008

  • chained_bear "'What is a potto?'

    'It is a little furry creature that sleeps all day curled up in a ball with its head between its legs and then walks about very, very slowly all night, high in the trees, slowly eating leaves and creeping up on birds as they roost and eating them too. It has immense eyes, which is but reasonable. Some call it the sluggard; some the slow lemur; some the sloth, but quite erroneously, for the two have nothing in common but their modest demeanour, their inoffensive lives....'"
    --P. O'Brian, The Commodore, 209

    another usage note on plantain-eater. Mar 17, 2008

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‘potto’ has been looked up 1956 times, loved by 2 people, added to 12 lists, commented on 8 times, and has a Scrabble score of 7.