Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or exhibiting melanism.
  • adjective Of, relating to, or affected with melanosis; melanotic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Black; dark: as, a melanic race.
  • Of or pertaining to melanosis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Melanotic.
  • adjective (Ethnol.) Of or pertaining to the black-haired races.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or exhibiting melanism.
  • noun A creature, such as a moth, exhibiting melanism.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There is no actual evidence that the melanic trait existed at any frequency above the background mutation rate before that.

    Death of a popular anti-ID argument 2007

  • … The idea arose, therefore, that the melanic forms wer in some way chaned in regard to their metabolism, and that this enabled them to feed on the poisoned food of the industrial districts.

    Welcome Article on Natural Selection in Peppered Moths - The Panda's Thumb 2005

  • … We tried to see whether the dark individuals were larger or stronger, but with negative ressults, though these individuals were more viable in breeding, an experience also reported by Harrison 1920 for British melanic moths.

    Welcome Article on Natural Selection in Peppered Moths - The Panda's Thumb 2005

  • Why were all such Sunday School rooms bile green, with those heinous Masonite tables and mustard-colored bulletin boards and the selfsame melanic upright piano with a plastic Jesus on top?

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2002

  • Why were all such Sunday School rooms bile green, with those heinous Masonite tables and mustard-colored bulletin boards and the selfsame melanic upright piano with a plastic Jesus on top?

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2002

  • For example, every sportsman must have noticed that the somewhat rare melanic variety of the common rabbit will crouch as steadily as the normal brownish-gray type, notwithstanding that, owing to its abnormal colour, a "nigger-rabbit" thus renders itself the most conspicuous object in the landscape.

    Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post-Darwinian Questions George John Romanes 1871

  • It is not impossible that some definite varieties, such as the melanic form of the jaguar and the bridled variety of the guillemot are due to this cause; but from their very nature such varieties are unstable, and are continually reproduced in varying proportions from the parent forms.

    Darwinism (1889) Alfred Russel Wallace 1868

  • Hawkins K, Bermingham E, Ricklefs RE, Mundy NI (2001) The molecular basis of an avian plumage polymorphism in the wild: a melanocortin-1-receptor point mutation is perfectly associated with the melanic plumage morph of the bananaquit, Coereba flaveola.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Pontus Skoglund et al. 2010

  • Unlike other lepidopteran melanic larvae mutations, this one is autosomal recessive and does not appear to involve a deficiency in JH titers.

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

  • Research on several species of melanic lepidopteran larvae have found that low levels of circulating juvenile hormone (JH) titers are associated with a melanic phenotype, suggesting that genetic changes in the JH biosynthetic pathway give rise to increased deposition of melanin granules in the cuticle in this group.

    ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2010

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  • Black; very dark. (from Phrontistery)

    May 23, 2008