reptile
pronunciation
How to pronounce reptile in British English:
UK [ˈreptaɪl]
How to pronounce reptile in American English:
US [ˈreptaɪl]
-
- Noun:
- any cold-blooded vertebrate of the class Reptilia including tortoises turtles snakes lizards alligators crocodiles and extinct forms
Word Origin
- reptile (n.)
- late 14c., "creeping or crawling animal," from Old French reptile (early 14c.) and directly from Late Latin reptile, noun use of neuter of reptilis (adj.) "creping, crawling," from rept-, past participle stem of repere "to crawl, creep," from PIE root *rep- "to creep, crawl" (cognates: Lithuanian replioju "to creep"). Used of persons of low character from 1749. Precise scientific use began to develop mid-18c., but the word was used as well at first of animals now known as amphibians, including toads, frogs, salamanders; separation of Reptilia (1835 as a distinct class) and Amphibia took place early 19c.; popular use lagged, and reptile still was used late 18c. with sense "An animal that creeps upon many feet" [Johnson, who calls the scorpion a reptile], sometimes excluding serpents. And the terrestrial animals may be divided into quadrupeds or beasts, reptiles, which have many feet, and serpents, which have no feet at all. [Locke, "Elements of Natural Philosophy," 1689] An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at ev'ning in the public path ; But he that has humanity, forewarn'd, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. [Cowper, "The Task," 1785] The Old English word for "reptile" was slincend, related to slink.
Example
- 1. The tuatara looks like a lizard , but is actually a very different kind of reptile .
- 2. Days before the year of the snake begins , there has been little affection for the slithering reptile .
- 3. The reptile isn 't a triassic leftover , but the last remaining part of a varied and long-lived lineage .
- 4. The little reptile looks like a lizard , but is actually the last remaining member of a different evolutionary branch called the rhynchocephalia .
- 5. This has made the tuatara another classic example of natural stagnation , with some researchers claiming that the reptile has remained unchanged for 220 million years .