Animal Adjectives - DailyWritingTips |
Posted: 13 Feb 2014 08:45 PM PST
Most writers are familiar with the animal adjectives canine and feline used to refer to dogs and cats, but they may not be aware of numerous others they could use in writing about both animals and people.
Here are some examples that use leonine, taurine, bovine, and feline:
Here’s a list of animals with their corresponding adjectives.
ant: formicine
ass: asinine bear: ursine bird: avian bull: taurine crow: corvine dog: canine dove: columbine elephant: elephantine fish: piscine fox: vulpine hornet/wasp: vespine horse: equine lion: leonine peacock: pavonine pig: porcine seal: phocine serpent: serpentine sheep: ovine swan: cygnine tiger: tigrine tortoise: testudine wolf: lupine viper: viperine
In addition to using animal adjectives literally and figuratively to describe animals and people, writers can build character names from them. For example, one of the characters in the novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz is a huge, bearlike servant named Ursus. A character called Corvin could have something to do with death; Pavonna could suggest beauty and pride, and Vespicia could be a sharp-tongued woman.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.