Dictionary

flehmen en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈfleɪmən/

Etymology

From German flehmen, from Upper Saxon German flemmen (“to look spiteful”).

Meanings

1. (countable, especially, in the compound "flehmen response", uncountable) Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming.
   • Ladewig and Hart showed that when a male goat displayed flehmen after investigating female urine containing a tracer material, the urine was found throughout the vomeronasal organ. 2006, Ernst Knobil, Jimmy D. Neill, Knobil and Neill's Physiology of Reproduction, page 2043:
   • Behaviors recorded included sniffing, flehmen, blowing, avoidance, and penile erections. 2003, IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group, The Living Elephants : Evolutionary Ecology, Behaviour, and Conservation, page 99:
   • During the preliminary phase of courtship between captive animals, Matthew Gaughwin observed flehmen on a number of occasions when the male sniffed intensely at areas of ground where the female had previously urinated and once when the male had sniffed the female's cloacal region. 2009, Barbara Triggs, Wombats, page 65:

Forms

Deriveds

flehmen response

flehmen en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /ˈfleɪmən/

Etymology

From German flehmen, from Upper Saxon German flemmen (“to look spiteful”).

Meanings

1. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of flehm.
   alt of flehm
   • One can observe mucus dripping from the nostrils of stallions after they flehmen. 1994, Lee Boyd, Katherine Albro Houpt, Przewalski's Horse: The History and Biology of an Endangered Species, page 246:

Forms