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cynomorphism

cynomorphism noun: the manner in which a dog sees the world, including the attribution of doglike characteristics to non-canine animals, especially humans.

Noun

cynomorphism (uncountable)

  1. (nonce-word) The manner in which a dog sees the world, including the attribution of doglike characteristics to non-canine animals, especially humans.
    • This should teach us to bear in mind that there is, affecting the dog's point of view, almost undoubtedly such a thing as cynomorphism, and that he has his peculiar and limited ideas of life and range of mental vision, and therefore perforce makes his artificial surroundings square with them.1892 December, Louis Robinson, “Canine Morals and Manners”, in The Popular Science Monthly, page 177
    • Without anthropomorphism on our part and cynomorphism on the dog's part, it is unlikely that dogs could have been successfully domesticated and eventually come to live in our homes and serve as companions and workmates.2004, Stanley Coren, How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind, Free Press, →ISBN, page 290

Origin of cynomorphism

From cyno- + -morphism.

Questions about cynomorphism

What does cynomorphism mean?
Cynomorphism means the manner in which a dog sees the world, including the attribution of doglike characteristics to non-canine animals, especially humans.
What part of speech is cynomorphism?
Cynomorphism is a noun.

Words near cynomorphism in the dictionary

  1. cynomolgous
  2. cynomolgus
  3. cynomolguses
  4. cynomorph
  5. cynomorphic
  6. cynomorphism
  7. cynomorphs
  8. Cynon
  9. cynophagia
  10. cynophagic
  11. cynophagist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cynomorphism (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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