salamandrine, a. and n.
(sæləˈmændrɪn)
[f. L. salamandra salamander + -ine1.]
A. adj.
1. Resembling or characteristic of the salamander in being able to resist fire, or live in it.
| 1712 Addison Spect. No. 281 ¶13 A certain Salamandrine Quality, that made it capable of living in the midst of Fire and Flame. a 1849 Poe Hawthorne Wks. 1865 III. 190 ‘It becometh not a divine’, saith Lord Coke, ‘to be of a fiery and salamandrine spirit’. 1870 Illustr. Lond. News 29 Oct. 446 They led their salamandrine dance over the glazed delft plaques vis-à-vis to the leaping flames. 1886 A. Simson Trav. in Ecuador xiv. 184 There was a hot fire and the necessity of carrying on culinary operations in its immediate vicinity, which tended to call our salamandrine qualities into requisition. |
2. Zool. Of or pertaining to the Salamandrinæ.
| 1865 Cope in Nat. Hist. Rev. Jan. 104 The representatives of these [types] in the Palæotropical region do not exhibit such decided salamandrine tendencies. 1870 Huxley Lay Serm. xii. 287 Fashioning flank and limb into due salamandrine proportions. 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 408 The Salamandrine Amblystoma mexicanum. |
B. n.
1. = salamander 2 b.
| 1797 W. Taylor in Monthly Rev. XXII. 507 The charms of Amenoe, a salamandrine. 1846 Blackw. Mag. LX. 226 Every horrible legend of demon, ghost, goule, gnome, salamandrine, and fireking. 1885 Battersby Elf Islands 15 Then perhaps the elves, and the fairies and the beautiful salamandrines will come back to us. |
2. = salamander 1 b.
| 1891 in Century Dict. |