Word.ws English Dictionary

ferine

/ˈfɪəɹaɪn/

ferine adjective: pertaining to wild, menacing animals; feral.

Adjective

ferine (comparative more ferine, superlative most ferine)

  1. (archaic) Pertaining to wild, menacing animals; feral.
    • the season of rutting (an uncouth phrase, by which the vulgar denote that gentle dalliance, which in the well-wooded forest of Hampshire, passes between lovers of the ferine kind) […]1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 162
  2. (obsolete) Belonging to the proposed taxon of bats, carnivorans, and insectivorans.

Noun

ferine (plural ferines)

  1. (obsolete) A member of the proposed taxon of bats, carnivorans, and insectivorans.

Synonyms of ferine

All synonyms of ferine

Forms of ferine

Adjective
comparativemore ferine
superlativemost ferine
Noun
pluralferines

Origin of ferine

From Latin ferīnus, from fera (“wild animal”). The zoological sense was coined by William Whewell in 1840.

Questions about ferine

What does ferine mean?
Ferine means pertaining to wild, menacing animals; feral.
What part of speech is ferine?
Ferine can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce ferine?
Ferine is pronounced /ˈfɪəɹaɪn/.

Words near ferine in the dictionary

  1. feridgis
  2. Feridhoo
  3. ferie
  4. feries
  5. ferimzone
  6. ferine
  7. ferines
  8. Feringee
  9. Feringees
  10. Feringhee
  11. Feringhees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ferine (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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