I'm looking for an adjective that describes a living being as having very long ears (rabbit, donkey, etc.) preferably ending in "-uous".
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1"A mule is an animal with long floppy ears..."– avpadernoCommented Mar 31, 2011 at 20:24
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4Not very relevant, but in Japanese it's "fukumimi" (福耳), which translates literally to "lucky ears". Buddha is depicted as having long ears, so it's thought that people with long ears have good fortune. One of those words that you wouldn't think exists.– Rei MiyasakaCommented Mar 31, 2011 at 23:04
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There's a difference between having long drooping ear lobes like the Buddha and having a lengthened helix. Surely there is a medical term for either.– MitchCommented Apr 12, 2013 at 13:14
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6 Answers
I believe you're looking for macrotous.
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I've never come across macrotous before, and to be honest I'd be lucky to have understood it without a pretty good context. Macrotic would do it for me, since I'm good with otic for of the ear. But apparently macrosis applies to any swollen / enlarged tissue or body part, with no particular suggestion of that being the ears. Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 15:07
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3I don't agree with using words that no one but Merriam-Webster will understand; especially when there are perfectly good alternatives. Perhaps it's just the programmer in me, but this seems like the opposite of user-friendly (or should I say, discommodious?) Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 18:16
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7@BlueRaja: I still remember Thomas Pynchon using musaceous (banana-like) at the beginning of Gravity's Rainbow, and then, after I waited for years to use it, someone finally asked me: "How's that banana?"– Neil GCommented Mar 31, 2011 at 18:22
You should probably just go with "long-eared" — I don't think there are any specific terms meaning that, except possibly scientific ones with Latin roots.
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Long-eared is attested in my dictionary for at least one animal species, the “long-eared bat”– F'xCommented Mar 31, 2011 at 13:36
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5@Billare: you can always go with long-earuous, or earuous for short. Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 14:23
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1Auritus -a -um: with ears, long-eared, having long ears Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 14:43
Huh, you might say the animals have pendulous ears. That emphasizes the weight of the ears, as well as suggesting they hang in a droopy fashion.
answered Mar 31, 2011 at 13:34
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1rabbit and donkeys ears are not pendulous, they rise up from their base!– F'xCommented Mar 31, 2011 at 13:35
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@F'x I have seen floppy rabbit ears before, but yeah, I was worried about that one. But donkeys? Really? Time to Google... Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 13:36
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5I believe there is a type of rabbit called "Lop-eared" or "a lop", which does in fact have pendulous ears. I recall a young kids book about one. "Leo the Lop".– user597Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 13:41
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@mickeyf: Good call on lop-eared: "(of an animal) having ears that droop down by the sides of the head: a lop-eared mule." Answer-worthy. Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 14:23
Hyperotic could be construed to mean "over-eared" (otic), though the folks at Urban Dictionary have other ideas about the definition.
answered Mar 31, 2011 at 17:35
There's always "asinine". Although that does imply dim-witted, as well as visually reminiscent of a donkey, which is maybe more of an implication than you wanted!
answered Mar 31, 2011 at 18:22
How about Vulpine - of or relating to a fox. "He had vulpine ears"
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There are some long eared foxes like the Fennec Fox, but fox ears for the most commonly known species such as the red fox are not very long in proportion to other animals in my opinion, and I do not think any Fox species has ears as long as a donkey's or a rabbit's.– TonepoetCommented Jun 9, 2019 at 14:06