Lisa calls from Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, to ask about adjectives involving various kinds of animals. She knows that pavonine describes something having to do with peacocks, bovine involves cows, anserine refers to geese, and lupine has to do with wolves. But there are many more such collateral adjectives, such as hippotigrine, which describes something involving zebras, from Greek hippos, meaning “horse.” In Greek, the word struthos means “sparrow” and struthos ho megas means “the big sparrow,” the name the Greeks applied to ostriches, and the source of English struthonian, meaning “having to do with ostriches.” Vespertilian refers to bats, from the Latin vesper, meaning “evening” or “evening star,” the source also of vespers, an evening prayer service. In general, these kind of words are known as collateral adjectives. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Bovine, Pavonine, and Other Animal Adjectives”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, is this Grant?
This is Grant. Who am I talking to?
We are talking to Lisa Fulkert from Bucolic, West Grove, Pennsylvania.
Bucolic. Lovely word.
Isn’t it awesome? And we’re going to be talking about animals.
Animals. Animals from Bucolic.
Hey, Martha.
Hey.
Welcome to the show. What can we do for you about animals?
I like to think a lot of people have words that they just like to say. Words are fun.
And for some reason, this little group of words just tickles my sister and I, like canine, feline, bovine, porcine, ursine, all those that have to do with animals.
And I’m sure there are more.
And Martha, I think you actually recently mentioned pavanine.
Oh, yeah.
Having to do with peacocks.
So thank you.
Oh, you’re welcome.
For adding to our collection.
You’re menagerie there.
It is, isn’t it?
So we were just kind of wondering.
I mean, I know they’re all adjectives, and we sometimes use some of them as nouns, but is there a word for these words?
Is there a word for words that describe different animals, like bovine, which means like a cow, right?
Mm—
Mm—
Yeah, they’re often called animal adjectives, and another term for it is collateral adjectives.
Those are adjectives that apply to a particular class of things.
Oh, interesting.
But for collateral adjectives, it’s not just for animals.
It can also refer to non-animal things like pluvial means related to rain.
Riparian means…
Rivers.
Riverbanks.
And literal means…
What do you say?
Literal?
Literal.
Oh, shores.
Shores, yeah.
But those are also collateral adjectives.
Yeah.
And the fun part about this for me is that usually it’s a matter of a Greek or Latin root.
And I was having fun trying to guess the ones that Grant was talking about there.
There are probably some other ones that you know and don’t realize you know, like what about asinine?
Where does that come from?
It comes from the Latin word asinus, which means a donkey.
Oh, that’s funny because they also found anserine.
Oh, yeah, which means having to do with a goose, right?
Geese, which also means stupid or silly.
Yes, yes, it can mean silly.
Another one is lupine, the flower.
Yeah.
Oh, from wolves.
Right, right.
Lupine is a flower that’s erroneously named because people used to think it wolfed nutrients out of the soil, which actually it does not.
It’s a nitrogen-fixing plant.
So that’s one you already know.
I wonder if you can guess this one.
If you know that the Greek word for horse is hippos, what do you think a hippotigrine would be?
Oh, my goodness.
Hippotigrine animal.
Because that sounds like you’re combining two animals.
Well, you kind of are.
I’m not sure that that occurs naturally in nature.
Well, it does.
It’s black and white.
Yeah, right?
It’s black and white.
Zebra?
Yes, yes.
Oh, look at that.
And I’ll give you just a couple more that I really like that don’t end in the I-N-E suffix.
Vespertilian.
Oh, very nice.
Isn’t that a gorgeous word?
It is.
I’m writing these down.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Vesperselian means having to do with bats.
Because they come out in the evening.
Yes, yes, at the same time you sing your vespers.
Exactly.
It comes from the Latin for evening or evening star.
And one more that you won’t see very often, but I’m surprised we don’t hear it more, is struthonian.
S-T-R-U-T-H-O-N-I-A-N.
Struthonian.
Is that related to God’s truth?
No, but that’s a good word.
Struth?
A Struthos homegos was a really big sparrow.
That was their term for ostrich.
And so if somebody is Struthonian, they’re sticking their head in the sand.
Oh, lovely.
Which is actually very funny because my sister often accuses me of sticking my head in the sand.
Oh, there you go.
So I am Struthonian.
Mm-Struthonian.
Very interesting.
There are lots of those.
If you just Google animal adjectives, you’ll find lists of them.
Another strategy is to take the five or six ones that you most likely know and Google them all together at once,
And you’ll come up with lists that have those five or six and tons more.
Okay, interesting.
Well, I did find one other thing when I was kind of looking up animals, barnyard animals specifically,
Because so many of the ones that I named tend to be from the barnyard animals.
And I looked up pigs, and the genus for pigs is SUS, S-U-S,
Which made me think, well, is that then where we come up with calling for pigs?
It is indeed. Absolutely. That is where we come up with a pig call.
That is so interesting, but that must go back quite a ways.
Yeah, many, many years. Yeah, many, many years.
Yeah, to Greek.
Great. That answers my questions and gives me more things to add to our list.
You must be fun on road trips.
Well, I’d like to think so.
Lisa, thank you for your call.
Thanks so much.
All right, take care now. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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