Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling an ostrich or a related bird; ratite.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Ostrich-like; resembling or related to the ostriches; struthiiform; ratite.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to the Struthiones, or Ostrich tribe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective like an ostrich or other ratite

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Late Latin strūthiō, ostrich, from Late Greek strouthiōn, from Greek strouthos.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin struthio ‘ostrich’.

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Examples

  • And two oddballs: struthious: ostrich-like formic: ant-like

    Breakfast in Bed desayunoencama 2005

  • Thus a difficulty presents itself as to the explanation of the three following relationships: -- (1) That of the Pterodactyles with carinate birds; (2) that of the Dinosauria with struthious birds; (3) that of the carinate and struthious birds with each other.

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • If it was that of the carinate birds, how did the struthious birds and

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • Until two or three hundred years ago, the coast-plains of Madagascar were trodden by the great struthious bird, the Æpyornis, apparently the most gigantic member of the avi-fauna of the world, and whose enormous eggs probably gave rise to the stories of the Rukh of the "Arabian Nights."

    The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Vol 43, No. 1 Various

  • Nevertheless, the view has been put forward and ably maintained by the same Professor, [54] as also by Professor Cope in the United States, that the line of descent from reptiles to birds has not been from ordinary reptiles, through pterodactyle-like forms, to ordinary birds, but to the struthious ones from certain extinct reptiles termed

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • It must have been that of the struthious birds or that of the carinate birds, or something different from both.

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • In these Dinosauria we find skeletal characters unlike those of ordinary (_i. e._ carinate) birds, but closely resembling in certain points the osseous structure of the struthious birds.

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • Finally, if it was something different from either, how did the carinate birds and pterodactyles take on independently one special common structure when disagreeing in so many; while the struthious birds, agreeing in many points with the Dinosauria, agree yet more with the carinate birds?

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • If it was that of the struthious birds, how did the pterodactyles and carinate birds independently arrive at the very same divergent structure?

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • One such reason is the way in which struthious birds are, or have been, distributed around the antarctic region: as the ostrich in Africa, the rhea in South America, the emeu in Australia, the apteryx, dinornis, &c. in New Zealand, the epiornis in Madagascar.

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

Comments

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  • Thanks to Mike G. Now that guy, he knows himself some serious vocab!

    January 5, 2007

  • He could describe her dress only as struthious (if there existed copper-curled ostriches), accentuating as it did the swing of her stance, the length of her legs in ninon stockings.

    - Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor

    June 5, 2008

  • I admire this word's ability to pass for something very serious and not at all to do with ostriches: "Did you enjoy the play?" – "Why, it was positively struthious!"

    (Also: struthious truthiness? Struthiness.)

    August 19, 2008

  • For more seriously struthious words, see struthonian and struthionine.

    August 19, 2008

  • Or the ever-popular Struthiomimus.

    August 19, 2008

  • Where has this word been all my life?

    August 19, 2008

  • Strewth!

    August 19, 2008

  • Oh how I long to use this word in natural conversation...

    May 25, 2009

  • this is in my TONY list, but it didn't appear in the mag; i just came across it in the dicker looking up something else at work.

    September 17, 2010