ranivorous
The great thing about today’s OED Word of the Day is that it is currently the only result that comes up on an internet search for the phrase “Also humorously of a French person.”
Thanks,
-Ed.
2 Responses to “ranivorous”
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Jed
I like that this post fits nicely with the previous one. I’m guessing that if we replace -ine with some variant of -vorous, we can construct adjectives for eaters of all sorts of animals.
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-Ed.
That’s lovely, although I’m not sure how to turn ‘manatee-eater’ into an abstruse insult.
…although now that I think about it in connection to your comment on that last post, there’s the thing where the hyrax is often erroneously believed to be ruminant, and the eating thereof is the subject of a surprising amount of medieval Jewish commentary, often (if I recall correctly) centered on whether a particular term in ancient Aramaic that is often translated into Western European languages as rabbit (or its equivalent) is actually referring to the rock hyrax. Thus, I suppose one group could contemptuously refer to the other as hyracivorous. Except that even hyrax don’t part the hoof, so actually the discussion isn’t actually about whether or not the animal named is or isn’t kosher, just why it isn’t. So neither side is hyraciverous (or lapivorous, either).
Thanks,
-E.
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