▪ I. mammal, n.
(ˈmæməl)
[First used in pl. as an anglicized form of Mammalia.]
An animal of the class Mammalia.
| 1826 Good Bk. Nat. II. ii. 52 As we have no fair synonym for it [Mammalia] in our own tongue, I shall beg leave now, as I have on various other occasions, to render it mammals. 1845 Chambers Vestiges (ed. 4) 199 The ornithorhynchus is a mammal receding to near the grade of birds. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. x. (1873) 283 True mammals have been discovered in the new red sandstone. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede vii, There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads..of all intelligent mammals, even of women. |
b. attrib., as mammal fœtus, mammal form, mammal giant.
| 1845 Chambers Vestiges (ed. 4) 207 In the mammal fœtus,..the organ has the form of a prolonged tube. Ibid., It becomes a full mammal heart. 1879 tr. Haeckel's Evol. of Man I. i. 3 Amphibian and Mammal forms. 1902 T. Gill in Pop. Sci. Monthly Sept. 436 A whale may be alluded to as a gigantic mammal or a mammal giant. |
▪ II. † mammal, a. Obs. rare.
[ad. late L. mammāl-is.]
Pertaining to the mammæ or breasts.
| 1656 Blount Glossogr. s.v. Vein, Mammal veine (vena mammalis) is double, an inward and an outward one, distributed among the parts of the brest. [From Cotgr., Veine mammale.] |