cervine
/ˈsəːvʌɪn/
cervine adjective: of, pertaining to, or characteristic of deer (in the broad sense).
Adjective
cervine (not comparable)
- Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of deer (in the broad sense).
- Near-synonym: cervid (in attributive use)
- To which she replied sweetly, shaking that fine cervine head: ‘At any moment tell yourself that things are much better that they have any right to be.’1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 495
- Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of deer in the narrow sense, that is, Cervinae, Capreolinae, or similar.
Noun
cervine (plural cervines)
- Any cervid/true deer.
- Synonyms:
- deer
- A deer of the subfamily Cervinae, also idiomatically called the Old World deer in English (even though that term is a misnomer).
- The cervines are arguably Europe's greatest mammalian success story: the earliest type, Cervavitus, first appeared about 10 million years ago—in Europe.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 106
Synonyms of cervine
Forms of cervine
| plural | cervines |
|---|
Origin of cervine
By anglicisation from Latin cervīnus; by surface analysis, Latin cerv(us) (“deer”) + -ine.
Questions about cervine
- What does cervine mean?
- Cervine means of, pertaining to, or characteristic of deer (in the broad sense).
- What part of speech is cervine?
- Cervine can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce cervine?
- Cervine is pronounced /ˈsəːvʌɪn/ (UK).
Words near cervine in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cervine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cervine.wav.
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