coelacanthine
coelacanthine adjective: pertaining to, or having the properties of, a coelacanth (fish).
Adjective
coelacanthine (comparative more coelacanthine, superlative most coelacanthine)
- Pertaining to, or having the properties of, a coelacanth (fish).
- Extremely old-fashioned or atavistic.
- It must always be remembered that although to an adult a particular belief may seem like a coelacanthine survival from the past, to the schoolchild who learns it from his mate the belief is a novelty; it is something just learnt, and often excitingly full of possibility for his immediate welfare.1959, Iona Opie, Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
- […] but a few people, like Steffens, found him attractive not simply because he was rich and useful but also because he was an object of study, a coelacanthine oddity in the natural history of commerce.2013, Justin Kaplan, Lincoln Steffens: Portrait of a Great American Journalist, page 166
Forms of coelacanthine
| comparative | more coelacanthine |
|---|---|
| superlative | most coelacanthine |
Origin of coelacanthine
From coelacanth + -ine.
Questions about coelacanthine
- What does coelacanthine mean?
- Coelacanthine means pertaining to, or having the properties of, a coelacanth (fish).
- What part of speech is coelacanthine?
- Coelacanthine is an adjective.
Words near coelacanthine in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coelacanthine (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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Cite this entry: “coelacanthine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coelacanthine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.