phocine

English

WOTD – 23 June 2011

Etymology

From Latin phōca (“seal”) (from Ancient Greek φώκη (phṓkē)) +‎ -ine.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfəʊsʌɪn/, /ˈfəʊsiːn/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Adjective

phocine (comparative more phocine, superlative most phocine)

1. Pertaining to a seal (or similar pinnipeds); seallike. [from 19th c.]
   • 28 December 1871, New York Daily Standard:

     He telegraphed to the whaling ports of New England, and sent messages to San Francisco and Alaska, to know if a group of sea lions and other specimens of the phocine tribe could be secured.

   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part 1, page 44:

     […] she had already yanked out of me the coveted section [of the newspaper] and retreated to her mat near her phocine mamma.

   • 1987, William Boyd, The New Confessions:

     She walked over towards me with an odd elegance, big strides, like a champion girl swimmer, say; muscled but lean, with a phocine grace.

Translations

pertaining to seals

• Finnish: hylje- (fi), hylkeiden; hyljemäinen (fi)
• Spanish: fócido (es) m

Noun

phocine (plural phocines)

1. (zoology) A member of the subfamily Phocinae, comprising the "true" or "earless" seals.
   • 2007, Brian Keith Hall, Fins into Limbs, page 313:

     Phocines anchor their hands by flexing their fingers, digging them into the substrate, and then pulling their body forward by elbow and shoulder flexion.

Translations

member of subfamily Phocinae

• Finnish: hylje (fi), varsinainen hylje

Anagrams

• Cophine, chopine