Dictionary

hippopotamine en · ADJ

Etymology

From hippopotamus + -ine.

Meanings

1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of hippopotamuses; large, rotund, indulgent.
   • Meanwhile, the wonderful series of hippopotamine remains from the Val d'Arno was attracting more attention... 1920, Sidney H. Reynolds, “A Monograph on the British Pleistocene Mammalia”, in Palæontographical Society 1920, volume III, London: Palæontographical Society, I. Hippopotamus, page 2:
   • Away on a hilltop sat combing her hair/His fair Hippopotamine maid... 2001 [1957], Michael Flanders, “The Hippopotamus Song”, in John Foster, editor, I've Got a Poem for You, Oxford University Press, page 11:
   • Fragmentary remains of a relatively small hippopotamine species referred to as imaguncula have been reported from the Western Rift of Uganda... 2010, Lars Werdelin, William J. Sanders, Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press, page 863:
   • But most important, a dinner of hippopotamine dimensions, portions you can wallow in, can be had, if you're cautious, for $9.50... 1972 May 29, Linda Wolfe, New York Magazine, Restaurants, page 76:
   • The baby animal trotted cheerfully around the grassy enclosure, adorable in her hippopotamine rotundness.
   • Taweret was a protector of women during pregnancy and childbirth, and of young children. This hippopotamine association derived from the well-known phenomenon of fearless female hippopotamuses protecting their young. 2017, Edgar Williams, Hippopotamus, Reaktion Books, pages 60, 61:
   • It is thus evident that about thirty years is the extreme limit of Hippopotamine existence... 1883 January 11, Nature, volume XXVII, number 689, Notes, page 247:

Forms

Relateds

elephantine · rhinocerine · rhinocerotine

wikipedia: William Dwight Whitney · wikipedia: Century Dictionary · wikipedia: Oxford English Dictionary · wikipedia: James Murray (lexicographer)