prehensile

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“
He knows without looking, exactly how thick and how prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in wait for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging the reactionary three-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the four-ounce rod will stand He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Adapted for seizing, grasping, or holding, especially by wrapping around an object: a monkey's prehensile tail.
  2. adjective Having keen intellect; insightful.
  3. adjective Greedy; grasping.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • It is a glorious tail: prehensile, muscular, coal black (Cather has seen coal, in the mineral stores), streaked with oxygenated aortal blue. —  FSFDec2003
  • One other point and I have done: I see by p. 179 of your review that I must have expressed myself very badly to have led you to think that I consider the prehensile organs of males as affording evidence of the females exerting a choice. —  Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1
  • Their feet are not prehensile, nor have they tails. —  Astounding Stories June, 1935
  • With a pained grumble, he spat out his tongue, which unrolled like a prehensile necktie. —  InterzoneScienceFictionandFantasyMagazine#215
  • The slave has articulated arms—arms which conform to the operator's—and prehensile, or grasp­, ing, hands with independently con­trolled, opposing fingers. —  IN QUEST OF A HUMANLIKE ROBOT
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This word has been looked up 172 times.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French préhensile, from Latin prehēnsus, past participle of prehendere, to grasp; see ghend- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French préhensile, from Latin prehensus, past participle of prehendere, lay hold of, seize: see prehend.
 

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/prəˈhɛnsɪl/
by American Heritage

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