| 释义 |
quadrupedal, a. and n.|kwəˈdruːpɪdəl|
Also 7 quadrupedall.
[ad. late L. quadrupedālis (Bæda), f. quadrupēs: see prec. and -al1. Cf. obs. F. quadrupedal (Godef.).]
A. adj.
1. Of animals: Four-footed; using all four feet for walking or running; transf., of a person: on hands and knees. Also transf. of things.
1620Venner Via Recta iii. 54 It [veal] is of an excellent..nutriture..exceeding all quadrupedall creatures. 1715Hist. Reg. (1724) Chron. Diary 57 Even the Quadrupedal Animals were strangely terrify'd. 1821–5Barham in Life & Lett. I. ii. 80 According as he found them more or less intelligent than his quadrupedal companion. 1854[see bipedal a. 2]. 1864–5Wood Homes without H. i. (1868) 6 Shafts through which the quadrupedal miner ejects the materials which it has scooped out. 1869Browning Ring & Bk. viii. 510 Beasts quadrupedal, mammiferous, Do credit to their beasthood. 1881Harper's Mag. Oct. 696 Two forces riding quadrupedal stools. 1897Proc. R. Soc. LX. 412 The posture assumed suggests the taking of a forward step in quadrupedal progression. 1914Chesterton Wisdom of Father Brown x. 249 Seeing him thus quadrupedal in the grass, the priest raised his eyebrows rather sadly. 1971Nature 12 Mar. 86/1 The four gaits [of the kangaroo] identified were a slow progression, a walk, a quadrupedal bound and a bipedal hop.
2. Of, belonging, or appropriate to, a quadruped.
quadrupedal signs, zodiacal signs named after quadrupeds (Phillips 1696; cf. quadrupedian above, and bestial 1).
1747Gentl. Mag. XVII. 480 Worms of various kinds are bred in animal bodies, quadrupedal as well as human. 1850H. Miller Footpr. Creat. viii. (1874) 149 The round ligament in the head of the quadrupedal thigh-bone. 1875Lyell's Princ. Geol. II. iii. xxxiv. 261 The natural tendency in man to resume the quadrupedal state. 1971Nature 30 Apr. 577/1 Those early or middle Miocene dryopithecines..have been dubbed ‘dental apes’—primates which apparently combined a hominoid dentition with limbs which retained a more primitive quadrupedal monkey-like morphology.
†3. ‘Four foot long’ (Phillips 1678). Obs.—0
†B. n. A quadruped. Obs. rare.
1643Nethersole Parables refl. on Times 12 The Eagle, the King of Volatills,..the Lyon, King of Quadrupedals. 1660Howell Parly of Beasts 11 My bloud..I confess to be the coldest of any Quadrupedals.
Hence quadruˈpedally adv.
1847W. J. Broderip Zool. Recreations ii. 179 Ask the zoologists, and one will tell you that the jackal..is the impure source of all that is quadrupedally good and amiable. 1952Riesen & Kinder Postural Devel. Infant Chimpanzees vi. 46 (table) Creeps (quadrupedally for chimpanzees). 1976Nature 29 Jan. 305/2 At these speeds the mice either ‘trotted’ with the hind legs moving independently or ‘galloped’ quadrupedally with the hind legs moving together. |