Word.ws English Dictionary

pavonine

/ˈpævəˌnaɪn/

pavonine adjective: of or pertaining to the genus Pavo or its family Pavonidae, including the peafowl.

Adjective

pavonine (comparative more pavonine, superlative most pavonine)

  1. Of or pertaining to the genus Pavo or its family Pavonidae, including the peafowl.
  2. Possessing the coloring or iridescence of a peacock feather.
    • These rocks are a schist, and abound with the copper pyrites, which occasionally exhibits a pavonine tarnish. The schist is sometimes of a very deep gray colour, and is then the most rich in metal; sometimes also it has the green[…]1817, Anne Plumptre, Narrative of a Residence in Ireland During the Summer of 1814, and that of 1815, page 184
    • It resembled from a distance porphyry, while much of it had a pavonine lustre, like the argentiferous galena of the Silver States in North America. The great weight suggested one mass of metal, and part of it had evidently been[…]1878, Sir Richard Francis Burton, The Gold-mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities: A Fortnight's Tour in North-western Arabia, page 218
  3. Showy, like a peacock's tail; exhibiting vanity.
    • ... leaving its present body would find or construct another according to its chief intrinsic qualities and forces, whether those were a leonine magnanimity of courage, a vulpine subtlety of cunning, or a pavonine strut of vanity .1864, William Rounseville Alger, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life: With a Complete Bibliography of the Subject, page 479
    • He had me all to himself; whilst his wife abased herself before my companion, he made up for the abasement by a truly pavonine strut and spread of his feathers. Amongst the few items of fact that floated on the torrent of his [lecture were...]1901, John Macmillan Brown, Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles, page 223

Noun

pavonine (uncountable)

  1. Tarnish found on some ores and metals which resembles the tail feathers of a peacock.
  2. Any bird from the family Pavonidae.

Examples of pavonine in a sentence

  • Massive BORNITE, having a pavonine purple tarnish; with dolomite.1883, Geological Survey of India. Museum, Frederick Richard Mallet, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collections of Minerals in the...
  • A list of acknowledgements can be a pavonine affair, an excuse more to flaunt than to thank.2021 December 14, Anthony Ossa-Richardson, A History of Ambiguity, Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

Forms of pavonine

comparativemore pavonine
superlativemost pavonine

Origin of pavonine

From oblique stem of Latin pāvō, pāvōnis (“peacock, peafowl”) + -ine, ultimately from Latin pāvōnīnus, from pāvō + -īnus.

Questions about pavonine

What does pavonine mean?
Pavonine means of or pertaining to the genus Pavo or its family Pavonidae, including the peafowl.
How do you use pavonine in a sentence?
Massive BORNITE, having a pavonine purple tarnish; with dolomite.
What part of speech is pavonine?
Pavonine can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce pavonine?
Pavonine is pronounced /ˈpævəˌnaɪn/.

Words near pavonine in the dictionary

  1. pavone
  2. pavones
  3. pavonia
  4. pavonian
  5. pavonias
  6. pavonine
  7. pavoninin
  8. pavoninins
  9. pavonite
  10. pavonne
  11. pavonnes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pavonine (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: en-us-pavonine.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pavonine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pavonine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.