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• rhesus
  rhesus

  noun

  a macaque, Macaca mulatta, of India, used in experimental medicine.
• Rhesus
  Rhesus

  noun

  Greek myth a king of Thrace, who arrived in the tenth year of the Trojan War to aid Troy. Odysseus and Diomedes stole his horses because an oracle had said that if these horses drank from the River Xanthus, Troy would not fall

rhesus

American  

[ree-suhs] / ˈri səs /

noun

1. a macaque, Macaca mulatta, of India, used in experimental medicine.

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Rhesus British  

/ ˈriːsəs /

noun

1. Greek myth a king of Thrace, who arrived in the tenth year of the Trojan War to aid Troy. Odysseus and Diomedes stole his horses because an oracle had said that if these horses drank from the River Xanthus, Troy would not fall

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Other Word Forms

• rhesian
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of rhesus

1830–40; < New Latin, arbitrary use of Latin Rhēsus name of a Thracian king allied with Troy < Greek Rhêsos

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rhesus Rhesus

On a tiny island called Cayo Santiago off the coast of Puerto Rico exists a colony of about 1,800 rhesus macaques.

From Salon ● Mar. 16, 2025

For example, in rhesus monkeys, infants who are separated from their mothers soon after birth, are more susceptible to disease later in life.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2024

They also isolated two antibodies from rhesus macaques -- a species of monkey with immune systems like humans' -- who previously had received a vaccine regimen designed to generate fusion peptide-directed antibodies.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 17, 2024

They discovered that in failed rhesus attempts, the placentas, which provide oxygen and nutrients to the growing foetus, were not reprogrammed properly by the cloning process and so did not develop normally.

From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2024

Neel strained to hear the sound of a soft mew of a cub, but the chatter of the rhesus monkeys and Headmaster’s loud panting made it impossible to hear anything else.

From "Tiger Boy" by Mitali Perkins

Zika, a mosquito-borne virus first identified in 1947 in a Rhesus macaque monkey, continues to perplex scientists in many ways nearly 80 years later.

From Salon ● Feb. 3, 2025

Other frequently identified species included Japanese macaques, Rhesus macaques, Crab-eating macaques and Olive baboons.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 20, 2024

The Rh blood group was first discovered in Rhesus monkeys.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022

Rhesus disease is a condition where antibodies in a pregnant woman's blood destroy her baby's blood cells.

From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2022

Indeed one might almost say that the Rhesus is simply the Doloneia turned into drama and set in the Trojan camp.

From The Rhesus of Euripedes by Euripedes

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