ursine

comparative more ursine · superlative most ursine

1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of bears.

   […] the old man's eccentricities, sometimes bordering on the ursine, repelled the juniors […]

   1924, Herman Melville, chapter 8, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.

   2 more examples

   The British chief having undergone the ursine embrace of the Seikh monarch, the whole cavalcade proceeded towards the town.

   1832, Godfrey Mundy, chapter VI, in Pen and Pencil Sketches, Being the Journal of a Tour in India, volume 1, London: John Murray, page 320

   […] we noted that a preponderance of the evidence supports an ursine origin for the giant panda.

   2004, in Donald G. Lindburg and Karen Baragona (eds.), Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation, Berkeley: University of California Press, Part Two, Introduction, p. 77, https://books.google.ca/books?id=bFKrwj73REIC&pg=PA77

2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the bear subfamily Ursinae.

   2004, in Donald G. Lindburg and Karen Baragona (eds.), Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation, Berkeley: University of California Press, Part Two, Introduction, p. 37, https://books.google.ca/books?id=bFKrwj73REIC&pg=PA37

3. biologyCovered in stiff bristles.

plural ursines

1. biologyA bear.

1. A census-designated place in Lincoln County, Nevada, United States.