ferine
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of ferine
1530–40; < Latin ferīnus, equivalent to fer ( a ) a wild animal (noun use of feminine of ferus wild) + -īnus -ine 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We killed some wild ferine creatures at the foot of these hills; but, except two things, like to nothing that we ever saw before, we met with nothing that was fit to eat.
From The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe
The only ferine companions we now had were a few hardy quadrupeds and birds, capable of enduring the winter.
From Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea by John Franklin
"Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain; Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain."
From The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us; The gold-delirium, the ferine strife; The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us; Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.
From Ballads of a Cheechako by Robert W. (Robert William) Service
This does not mean that the result in either case is an all around and consistent rehabilitation of the ferine or barbarian habit of mind and body.
From Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
