Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various primates of the suborder Prosimii, which consists of the lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Lemurine or lemuroid; strepsirrhine, as a lemur; of or pertaining to the Prosimiæ.
  • noun A member of the Prosimiæ; a lemuroid, lemurine, or lemur.

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

  • adjective Of or from the prosimian suborder of primates.
  • noun A primate that is not a monkey or an ape, generally nocturnal with large eyes and ears. Such primates were formerly grouped in the suborder Prosimii, but are now considered a paraphyletic group and not a clade.

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

  • noun primitive primates having large ears and eyes and characterized by nocturnal habits

Etymologies

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

[From New Latin Prosīmiī, suborder name : Latin pro-, before; see pro– + Latin sīmiī, pl. of sīmius, ape (variant of sīmia; see simian).]

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Examples

  • HANNA: Well, the lemur is what we call a prosimian, which means pre-monkey and pre-ape.

    CNN Transcript Jan 1, 2010 2010

  • BB, the bouncing bush baby, was a small prosimian we brought back from Kenya, and Bear was simply the most loving and loyal German shepherd ever, who some fool dumped off in the hills of Beverly and I was lucky enough to rescue.

    One From The Hart Stefanie Powers 2010

  • The authors of the paper describing Darwinius classified it as a member of the primate family Notharctidae, subfamily Cercamoniinae, suggesting that it has the status of a significant transitional form (a "link") between the prosimian and simian ("anthropoid") primate lineages.

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

  • The authors of the paper describing Darwinius classified it as a member of the primate family Notharctidae, subfamily Cercamoniinae, suggesting that it has the status of a significant transitional form (a "link") between the prosimian and simian ("anthropoid") primate lineages.

    [evolution] and its shoddy tactics 2009

  • At the Fongoli site in Senegal, we observed ten different chimpanzees use tools to hunt prosimian prey in 22 bouts.

    RELIGION Blog | dallasnews.com 2009

  • At the Fongoli site in Senegal, we observed ten different chimpanzees use tools to hunt prosimian prey in 22 bouts.

    Science Press Releases 2007

  • So Gunther et al. (1992) titled a paper 'Can prosimian-like leaping be considered a preadaptation to bipedal walking in hominids'.

    Literally, flying lemurs (and not dermopterans) Darren Naish 2006

  • Can prosimian-like leaping be considered a preadaptation to bipedal walking in hominids?

    Literally, flying lemurs (and not dermopterans) Darren Naish 2006

  • Are there aerodynamic effects in leaping prosimian primates?

    Literally, flying lemurs (and not dermopterans) Darren Naish 2006

  • Several primate species are found in these forests and include the threatened banded langur (Trachypithecus melalophus) and slow loris (Loris nycticebus), a small, nocturnal prosimian.

    Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests 2008

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