Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various apes of the subfamily Ponginae, which includes only the orangutans and their extinct relatives.
  • noun Any of various apes of the formerly recognized family Pongidae, which included the chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. No longer in scientific use.

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

  • noun Any primate in the family Pongidae, including the great apes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of the large anthropoid apes of the family Pongidae

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From New Latin Pongidae, former family name, from Pongo, type genus, from obsolete French pongo, great ape of Africa, of Bantu origin; akin to western dialectal Kongo mpungu, gorilla.]

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Examples

  • (formerly would have been called a pongid/ape) fossil, not a human per se.

    Original Signal - Transmitting Digg 2009

  • I like Gigantopithecus but "he" seems more pongid --??

    Frame 352, and all that Darren Naish 2006

  • Yet he graciously forgave Le Gros and thanked him for his apology—though he also added somewhat testily, “I think both Mary and I do know a genuine fossil when we see one and can distinguish a pongid ape from a hominid without any difficulty.”

    Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

  • Yet he graciously forgave Le Gros and thanked him for his apology—though he also added somewhat testily, “I think both Mary and I do know a genuine fossil when we see one and can distinguish a pongid ape from a hominid without any difficulty.”

    Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Comments

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  • (adj) in a more abstract way, used to describe something gorrilla-like :)

    January 31, 2008