theriomorph, n. and a.
(ˈθɪərɪəʊmɔːf)
[f. therio- + -morph; cf. theriomorphic a.]
A. n. a. A representation of an animal form in art.
| 1913 [see anthropomorph]. 1928 V. G. Childe Most Anc. East iv. 84 Some theriomorphs are made of just those variegated stones. |
b. = theromorph. Also fig.
| 1920 H. G. Wells Outl. Hist. i. vi. 24/1 These little Theriomorphs, these ancestral mammals, developed hair. 1934 A. J. Toynbee Study of Hist. III. 194 But he [sc. Wells] comes to grief in the recent annals of our own Western history when he has to size up that singularly etherialized theriomorph William Ewart Gladstone. |
B. adj. Having the form or characteristics of a beast.
| 1969 H. Arendt On Violence (1970) 60 Why should we, after having ‘eliminated’ all anthropomorphisms from animal psychology (whether we actually succeeded is another matter), now try to discover ‘how {oqq}theriomorph{cqq} man is’? |