English

Adjective

ursine ‎(comparative more ursine, superlative most ursine)

1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of bears.
   • 1832, Godfrey Mundy, Pen and Pencil Sketches, Being the Journal of a Tour in India, London: John Murray, Vol. 1, Chapter VI, p. 320,

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

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 8,

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

   • 2004, in Donald G. Lindburg and Karen Baragona (eds.), Giant Pandas: Biology and Conservation, Berkeley: University of California Press, Part Two, Introduction, p. 77,

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

2. (entomology, of caterpillars) Covered in stiff bristles.

Derived terms

Synonyms

• bearly

Translations

Anagrams

• insure, inures, nursie

Latin

Adjective

ursīne

1. vocative masculine singular of ursīnus