hippopotamic, a.
(ˌhɪpəʊpəʊˈtæmɪk, -ˈpɒtəmɪk)
[f. hippopotam-us + -ic.]
Belonging to, like, or suggesting a hippopotamus; huge, unwieldly.
| 1785 J. Douglas Antiq. Earth 9 These hippopotamic remains being discovered petrified. 1865 Livingstone Zambesi xvi. 326 They stare with peculiar stolid looks of hippopotamic surprise. 1884 Punch 15 Nov. 240/1 Rather hippopotamic in his humour. |
So hippopoˈtamian, hippoˈpotamine adjs. = prec.; hippoˈpotamid Zool., an animal of the family Hippopotamidæ; hippoˈpotamoid a., resembling a hippopotamus.
| 1864 Realm 6 Apr. 2 Ladies of such hippopotamian proportions. 1866 E. C. Rye Brit. Beetles 56 The heavy hippotamoid Zabrus gibbus. 1871 Huxley Anat. Vert. Anim. viii. 375 Merycopotamus..appears to have been a Hippopotamid. 1883 Nature XXVII. 247 About thirty years is the extreme limit of Hippopotamine existence. |