Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A coping with a double slope.
  • noun Creadion carunculatus, a passerine bird of New Zealand: so named on account of the chestnut mark on its back.
  • noun A pigeon having a broad mark across the upper part of the back, suggestive of a saddle.
  • Characterized by having a rather steep double slope. Thus, a saddleback roof on a tower is one which has two slopes with a ridge between them and which is bounded at either end by the gable wall. The terra is not often applied to the roofs of large masses of buildings.
  • noun A hill or its summit when shaped somewhat like a saddle.
  • noun A bastard kind of oyster, unfit for food; a racoon-oyster.
  • noun The great black-backed gull: same as blackback, 1.
  • noun The harp-seal: so called from the mark on the back.
  • noun A variety of domestic geese, white, with dark feathers on the back like a saddle.
  • noun The larva of the bombycid moth Empretia stimulea: so called on account of the saddle-like markings on the back.

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

  • adjective Same as saddle-backed.
  • adjective (Arch.) See Saddle roof, under Saddle.
  • noun Anything saddle-backed; esp., a hill or ridge having a concave outline at the top.
  • noun The harp seal.
  • noun The great blackbacked gull (Larus marinus).
  • noun The larva of a bombycid moth (Empretia stimulea) which has a large, bright green, saddle-shaped patch of color on the back.

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

  • verb slang To engage in anal sex with the intention of preserving one's virginity (chiefly by Christian teenagers)
  • noun A saddle-shaped ridge forming a shallow pass between two peaks.
  • noun A roof in the same shape, having a gable at each end.
  • noun Any of various creatures having a saddle-shaped marking on its back.
  • noun geology An anticlinal.
  • noun UK the great black-backed gull.
  • adjective saddle-backed
  • adverb saddle-backed

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a pass or ridge that slopes gently between two peaks (is shaped like a saddle)
  • noun a double sloping roof with a ridge and gables at each end

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Saddleback Church of Lake Forest, California. Coined in a contest held by columnist Dan Savage, in response to its support for California Proposition 8.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

saddle +‎ back

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Examples

  • The saddleback was a diplodocoid more than a hundred feet long, named for the sage-and-rust markings that broke up its vast profile.

    Archive 2009-07-05 Sean Craven 2009

  • The saddleback was a diplodocoid more than a hundred feet long, named for the sage-and-rust markings that broke up its vast profile.

    You Want Evopunk? I'll Give You Evopunk. Sean Craven 2009

  • "saddleback" -- the greater black-backed gull of the text-books -- knowing the hand of man to be against it for its raids on game and poultry, would keep at a respectful distance.

    Birds in the Calendar 1894

  • Am I the only one who snickers when they hear "saddleback"?

    Planet Atheism 2009

  • And now … without further delay … the winning definition of "saddleback" … by a gaping margin … definition number 5.

    News on Anchorage Press 2009

  • A new monkey, a subspecies of saddleback tamarin, has been described.

    New Saddleback Tamarin 2009

  • The livestock comprises one saddleback sow with seven piglets, 15 chickens and some bees.

    Country diary: Windsor Hill, Somerset 2011

  • I shed my pack, kept my weapon and started running full out up the saddleback, then something tugged at my right side, i had caught a round A through and through gunshot wound.

    ronald dean douglas 2010

  • A new monkey, a subspecies of saddleback tamarin, has been described.

    Archive 2009-07-01 2009

  • In the wild, emperor tamarins often live side by side with saddleback tamarins.

    ZooBorns Andrew Bleiman 2010

Comments

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  • a pass or ridge that slopes gently between two peaks (is shaped like a saddle)

    September 27, 2008