indri
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of indri
First recorded in 1830–40; from French indri, Malagasy indry “look!,” wrongly taken as animal's name
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.
See Examples For:
The high-pitched, wailing duets of Madagascar’s giant indri lemurs may sound chaotic at first, but a study shows they actually have a regular underlying timing pattern.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 27, 2021
Dissecting indri songs indicates these animals share an underlying sense of rhythm with humans, but it raises more questions about how indris communicate.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2021
Scientists now say they have discovered one of the hallmarks of the skill in the fluffy, black-and-white indri lemur, a species distantly related to humans and only found in Madagascar.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 25, 2021
Around dusk we pulled into the national park, which is home to several species of lemurs, including the Indri indri, whose name simply means “look up” or “look at that” in Malagasy.
From New York Times ● Dec. 20, 2010
It's hard to say how long the indri itself will stay with us.
From Time Magazine Archive
Whether this musical overlap between humans and indris is a case of common ancestry or convergent evolution — where our rhythmic abilities evolved independently — remains unclear.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2021
From recordings of 346 lemur duets and choruses, Ravignani extracted 636 individual sounds uttered by the 39 adult indris, 20 females and 19 males.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 25, 2021
Although indris and human composers may utilize some similar structures, each likely developed musical abilities on their own.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2021
Exploring our commonalities with indris is helping to demystify the evolutionary origins of human music, but it is also bringing much-needed attention to these lemurs who are of incredible cultural importance to the Malagasy people.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2021
Dissecting indri songs indicates these animals share an underlying sense of rhythm with humans, but it raises more questions about how indris communicate.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2021
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.
