LEMUR

lemur

(noun) large-eyed arboreal prosimian having foxy faces and long furry tails

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

lemur (plural lemurs)

(colloquial) Any strepsirrhine primate of the infraorder Lemuriformes, superfamily Lemuroidea, native only to Madagascar and some surrounding islands.

Any of the genus Lemur, represented by the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta).

(obsolete) A loris (Lemur tardigradus, now Loris tardigradus), predating the 10th edition of Systema Naturæ.

Usage notes

The taxonomy is currently disputed, see

Source: Wiktionary


Le"mur, n. Etym: [L., a ghost, specter. So called on account of its habit of going abroad by night.] (Zoöl.)

Definition: One of a family (Lemuridæ) of nocturnal mammals allied to the monkeys, but of small size, and having a sharp and foxlike muzzle, and large eyes. They feed upon birds, insects, and fruit, and are mostly natives of Madagascar and the neighboring islands, one genus (Galago) occurring in Africa. The slow lemur or kukang of the East Indies is Nycticebus tardigradus. See Galago, Indris, and Colugo.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

22 February 2025

ANALYSIS

(noun) the use of closed-class words instead of inflections: e.g., ‘the father of the bride’ instead of ‘the bride’s father’


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