ferine

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   literary: wild, untamed, or characteristic of a wild animal

   A ferine alertness entered the dog's posture when it caught the unfamiliar scent.

2. 2
   adj

   historical zoology: belonging to a former proposed grouping of carnivorous, insect-eating, and related mammals

   The nineteenth-century treatise placed several mammals in a ferine order no longer recognized by zoologists.

From Latin ferinus, 'of or belonging to wild animals,' from fera, 'wild animal.' Nineteenth-century zoologists also used the word for a proposed mammalian grouping, but its enduring literary sense is simply wild or animal-like.

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