mammalian
Americannoun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mammalian
Explanation
Use the adjective mammalian to describe warm-blooded vertebrates with hair, or anything related to them. Your sister might be fond of snakes and frogs, while you'd prefer a mammalian pet, like a dog or cat. You, your pet dog, a gorilla, and a skunk all have something very important in common: you can all be described as mammalian, since you are all in the scientific class known as Mammalia. Mammalian characteristics range from having three small bones in each ear, to not being born inside an egg (with the exception of the platypus and other monotremes), to being nursed by a mother as an infant.
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.
During breeding season—roughly late April through most of August—they nest in underground burrows on offshore islands where mammalian predators such as mink, rats and foxes can’t get at them or their young.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
"There was so much prey available that mammalian predators couldn't have eaten it all," says Oscar Wilson, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026
Federal inspectors detailed multiple instances of mammalian hair found in drugs produced at a Catalent plant in Bloomington, Ind., used in part to manufacture semaglutide.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
His current best theory is that it’s generated by quantum processes, suggesting that awareness exists on a continuous spectrum across all matter rather than remaining the exclusive domain of mammalian brains.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
It is no longer necessary to guess about the storage of insecticides in the eggs of birds, which obviously lend themselves to this kind of observation more readily than the mammalian ovum.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
