Library / English Dictionary

MAMMAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any warm-blooded vertebrate having the skin more or less covered with hair; young are born alive except for the small subclass of monotremes and nourished with milk

Synonyms:

mammal; mammalian

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("mammal" is a kind of...):

craniate; vertebrate (animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium)

Meronyms (parts of "mammal"):

coat; pelage (growth of hair or wool or fur covering the body of an animal)

hair; pilus (any of the cylindrical filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal)

Domain member category:

allantois (the vascular fetal membrane that lies below the chorion and develops from the hindgut in many embryonic higher vertebrates (reptiles, birds and mammals))

chorion (the outermost membranous sac enclosing the embryo in higher vertebrates (reptiles, birds and mammals))

amnion; amnios; amniotic sac (thin innermost membranous sac enclosing the developing embryo of higher vertebrates (reptiles, birds and mammals))

Amniota (higher vertebrates (reptiles, birds and mammals) possessing an amnion during development)

biauriculate heart (a heart (as of mammals and birds and reptiles) having two auricles)

mount; ride (copulate with)

digitigrade ((of mammals) walking on the toes with the posterior part of the foot raised (as cats, dogs, and horses do))

plantigrade ((of mammals) walking on the whole sole of the foot (as rabbits, raccoons, bears, and humans do))

estrous ((of lower mammals) showing or in a state of estrus; in heat)

anestrous ((of lower mammals) not in a state of estrus; not in heat)

weaned (freed of dependence on something especially (for mammals) mother's milk)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mammal"):

female mammal (animals that nourish their young with milk)

tusker (any mammal with prominent tusks (especially an elephant or wild boar))

prototherian (primitive oviparous mammals found only in Australia and Tasmania and New Guinea)

metatherian (primitive pouched mammals found mainly in Australia and the Americas)

eutherian; eutherian mammal; placental; placental mammal (mammals having a placenta; all mammals except monotremes and marsupials)

fossorial mammal (a burrowing mammal having limbs adapted for digging)

Holonyms ("mammal" is a member of...):

class Mammalia; Mammalia (warm-blooded vertebrates characterized by mammary glands in the female)

Credits

 Context examples: 

MELANOPHORES are larger cells which do not exist in mammals.

(Murine Melanocytes, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

In mammals, the nitrogen is converted to urea in the liver through a series of reactions called the urea cycle.

(Feeding Amino Groups into the Urea Cycle, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

D. nishinomiyaensis is found in water and on the skin of mammals and is considered to be non-pathogenic.

(Dermacoccus nishinomiyaensis, NCI Thesaurus)

Mammals do not have melanophores; however they have retained smaller pigment cells known as MELANOCYTES.

(Murine Melanophores, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Supporting cells found in the seminiferous tubules of the testes in mammals.

(Murine Sertoli Cells, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

B. parapertussis is found in the respiratory tract of mammals where it usually causes a mild form of whooping cough.

(Bordetella parapertussis, NCI Thesaurus)

B. aquatica is found in water and small mammals and is pathogenic to humans.

(Budvicia aquatica, NCI Thesaurus)

The process by which a mammal gives birth.

(Parturition, NCI Thesaurus)

Birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals have evolved diverse lung structures; air flows through them in complicated ways.

(Following the lizard lung labyrinth, National Science Foundation)

Although somatic cell nuclear transfer was used successfully in amphibians as early as 1952, getting it to work in mammals took much longer.

(Healthy cloned monkeys born in Shanghai, Wikinews)