57
votes
Accepted
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
Synanthropic
:ecologically associated with humans
synanthropic flies
"Synanthropic." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2017.
- 17k
55
votes
Is there an adjective for deer-like?
cervine
of, relating to, or resembling deer
(source: Merriam-Webster)
With words like these, it sometimes helps if you look up the animal in Wikipedia, check what the Latin-based family name is (...
- 14.5k
49
votes
What is the word to describe a bird organizing its feathers?
The verb is to preen:
[ I or T ] If a bird preens or preens itself, it cleans and arranges its feathers using its beak.
(Cambridge Dictionary)
preening macaw parrot
From (blog.parrotessentials....
- 68.1k
45
votes
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
Urban or urbanized might work, as in "urban wildlife".
This would refer to where the animals live rather than what their relation is with humans, and would specifically refer to densely-populated ...
- 964
40
votes
Accepted
What's a word for a person being fed on by a blood sucking animal?
"Host" would be the most correct term biologically, though it's more often associated with long-term parasites / guests that actually live in or on the host.
If you want to avoid the "...
- 664
25
votes
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
Feral really means 'wild' but this word is often used to describe non-domestic animals living among humans.
Definition of feral
1 : of, relating to, or suggestive of a wild beast
2 a : not ...
- 7,392
24
votes
What's a word for a person being fed on by a blood sucking animal?
From the perspective of a biologist
This is NOT an example of a predator / prey relationship. By definition, a predator KILLS its prey. If the person whose blood is being taken generally lives, they ...
- 1,717
18
votes
The balled (headed) eagle?
OED unequivocally derives the first morpheme in “bald eagle” (or “bald-eagle”) from the ordinary sense of bald as “Having no hair on some part of the head where it would naturally grow; hairless.”
In ...
- 16.3k
14
votes
Accepted
The balled (headed) eagle?
The earliest attested spelling of the word bald seems to be balled, as you have noticed. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "Middle English balled" is "of uncertain origin".
However, ...
- 84.5k
13
votes
PETA wants workers to “bring home the bagels”
A close analogy to an agenda-driven revision of a shared body of literature, either oral or written, would be the the revision of Christian hymnody to reflect contemporary language and the theological/...
- 28.2k
9
votes
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
I would use the word "Cohabitant".
"3. to dwell with another or share the same place, as different species
of animals."
From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cohabitant
I feel this fits all the ...
- 332
9
votes
PETA wants workers to “bring home the bagels”
"Why are the idioms listed speciesist?"
All the examples on the left column describe some sort of violence or otherwise negative action on an animal. The right column removes those. Violence against ...
- 72.1k
9
votes
What's a word for a person being fed on by a blood sucking animal?
You say that the "suckee" receives a benefit — namely, good luck — in exchange for its blood. One could therefore argue that the relationship between sucker and suckee is symbiotic rather ...
- 772
8
votes
Is there a gender neutral term for a single animal of the Bovine species?
"Neat" is a bit archaic, but is the correct word.
As in neatsfoot oil. That is the English word for a neutral gender of a single animal from a herd of cattle.
- 81
8
votes
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
The word you're looking for is commensal:
Commensalism, in ecology, is a class of relationships between two organisms where one organism benefits from the other without affecting it.
en.wikipedia....
- 214
7
votes
A single word for non-domesticated animals that live among humans?
"Synanthropic", which has already been suggested, is probably the closest to your requirements. If you are specifically talking about animals that live close to or within human buildings, rather than ...
- 243
7
votes
Why do the police use "K-9" or "K-9 Unit" instead of "dog"?
Origin of the term 'K-9 unit'
An Elephind newspaper database search turns up at least one instance of "K-9 unit" from World War II. From "5th Infantry Dog Up to Snuff With '201' File&...
- 169k
7
votes
PETA wants workers to “bring home the bagels”
Question 1, Why are the idioms listed speciesist?
The problem I see in PETA's attitude is that they've simply begged the question from the get-go. First they say "Here's how to remove speciesism from ...
- 12.7k
7
votes
PETA wants workers to “bring home the bagels”
I'm not a linguist or language historian, but I've read a bit about evolution of the English language, so take this with a grain of salt.
Language generally changes organically, I think it's pretty ...
- 22.5k
7
votes
Muzzle or not? What would you call this thing?
It's a SNOUT.
According to Oxford English Dictionary :
snout
NOUN
The projecting nose and mouth of an animal, especially a mammal.
According to Wikipedia :
"In many animals, the equivalent ...
- 5,491
6
votes
Is there an adjective for deer-like?
"Deerlike" is a dictionary word (which also happens to be an adjective):
(in British English)
ADJECTIVE
resembling a deer
(Collins dictionary)
However, cervine appears to be used more ...
- 10.3k
6
votes
Do animals have "gender"?
Some writers in animal research used gender and sex interchangeably, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, though there is recent movement to set the record straight.
In biology, the distinction between ...
- 41.7k
5
votes
Accepted
Meaning of the word “cajoling” when applied to dairy cattle?
Well, this is a nice detective puzzle.
First clue: the article referenced in OP tells us that:
cajoling is difficult to distinguish from other types of behavior
that are unrelated to oestrus (e....
- 13k
5
votes
PETA wants workers to “bring home the bagels”
Referring to question 3, the mentioned changes in the usage of "offensive" expressions appear to have an old history as the following extract notes:
1.1. The protective euphemism — to ...
- 68.1k
5
votes
Schools and Shoals
The two terms actually refer to two related but distinct activities:
Any group of fish that stays together for social reasons is said to be shoaling, and if the shoal is swimming in the same ...
- 68.1k
5
votes
Is cow ever the plural of cow?
English ‘Irregular’ Plurals
The poster writes:
“I noticed that, unlike with sheep or deer, cows is the plural of cow.
I started wondering why”
However, this seems to assume that English has ...
- 13k
5
votes
Historical English word for raw meat
'flesh' is a reasonable choice (as BoldBen put in a comment above.)
As to the 'does it include fish' I'd say no, hence Mercutio's line in Romeo and Juliet "O flesh, how thou art fishified"......
- 51
5
votes
Accepted
Why do lion, tiger, panther, and leopard have female forms (lioness, tigress, pantheress, leopardess), but jaguar, puma, cheetah, and cougar don't?
Mostly because -ess was not productive in English for animals, only for humans. The OED says (s.v. -ess): "In English the suffix is not used to form feminines of names of animals: lioness, ...
- 77.8k
5
votes
Where, when, and how did the term 'dogie' for 'orphan calf' originate?
dogie The American cowboy has been shouting “git along, little dogie” for more than a century, but etymologists differ about the
origin of the word dogie for a motherless calf. Some think it derives
...
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