muscine

comparative more muscine · superlative most muscine

1. Of or pertaining to the Muscidae family of flies.

   […] in these respects spinthera is unlike any other muscine larva so far described.

   1985, Peter Skidmore, The Biology of the Muscidae of the World, page 205

   1 more example

   One can see by the description of the ovum and this account of early blastoderm formation that the egg of Glossina is intermediate between the typical muscine ovum with its thick periplasm and the very thin peripheral cytoplasmic layer of Melophagus, […]

   1951, Harold Raymond Hagan, Embryology of the viviparous insects

comparative more muscine · superlative most muscine

1. Murine; of, pertaining to, resembling, or being a mouse.

   My friend explained to me that every evening two little mice came out from behind the skirting-board in his dining-room, and sang for their supper of cheese, biscuit, and other muscine delicacies, which he took care to place on the carpet for them always at the same hour.

   1878 November, Henry Lee, “Singing Mice”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 14, page 102

   2 more examples

   If true, there is something peculiarly interesting in these periodical visitations—or, I should, perhaps, rather say migrations—of mice, for I was informed that these muscine armies come from the interior, or from that direction, towards the sea, which they boldly enter, and are consequently drowned and their bodies cast on the shore "by thousands."

   1870, Henry Reeks, "Notes on the Zoology of Newfoundland" in The Zoologist (2nd series, vol. 5, March 1870), page 2042

   The goal isn't simply to generate offspring, but rather to produce successful offspring, and if you're a mouse, success is best achieved by living fast, loving hard, and dying young […] If you're an elephant, success requires a very different reproductive style. And if you're a human being, you are more elephantine than muscine.

   2009, David P. Barash, Judith Eve Lipton, How Women Got Their Curves and Other Just-So Stories, page 185

   Synonyms: mouselike, mousy, murine