Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various hoofed, even-toed, usually horned mammals of the suborder Ruminantia, such as cattle, sheep, deer, antelopes, and giraffes, characteristically having a stomach divided into four compartments and chewing a cud that consists of plant food that is regurgitated when partially digested.
- noun Any of various animals that ruminate but are not in the Ruminantia, including camels, alpacas, and llamas.
- adjective Characterized by the chewing of cud.
- adjective Of or belonging to the Ruminantia.
- adjective Meditative; contemplative.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Ruminating; chewing the cud; belonging to the Ruminantia, or having their characters.
- Hence, thoughtful; meditative; quiet.
- noun An animal that chews the cud; any member of the Ruminantia.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Chewing the cud; characterized by chewing again what has been swallowed; of or pertaining to the Ruminantia.
- noun (Zoöl.) A ruminant animal; one of the Ruminantia.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Chewing
cud . - noun An
artiodactyl ungulate mammal which chewscud , such as acow ordeer .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various cud-chewing hoofed mammals having a stomach divided into four (occasionally three) compartments
- adjective related to or characteristic of animals of the suborder Ruminantia or any other animal that chews a cud
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another.
Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949
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If you want to subsist solely on weeds like some sort of bipedal ruminant, that is your right - go for it.
TED 2008: Crow vending machine maker Joshua Klein - Boing Boing 2008
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When a cow eats infected tissue -- it's called the ruminant feed that they used to get this from -- it can take as much as eight years for that cow to start showing symptoms.
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My word of the day is "ruminant", in case anyone is wondering.
HH Com 160 Miss Snark 2006
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A ruminant is a mammal that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal’s first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again.
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I sometimes think I am the only really sane man aboard the vessel -- except perhaps the second engineer, who is a kind of ruminant, and would care nothing for all the fiends in the Red Sea so long as they would leave him alone and not disarrange his tools.
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Other healthy green practices include eschewing trans fat, using fewer "ruminant" meats such as beef and lamb, reducing food waste (by serving smaller portions) and using biodegradables.
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a kind of ruminant, and would care nothing for all the fiends in the Red
The Captain of the Polestar Arthur Conan Doyle 1894
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Hector proves this was not a mistake and these are precisely the sort of people who buy into this ruminant evacutation. fostert Says:
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Humans do not possess either the digestive enzymes or the multiple-pouched digestive system enjoyed by ruminant animals, which are capable of consuming and being well-nourished by grain-based carbohydrates in their naturally-occurring state.
Georgianna Donadio, MSc, Ph.D., D.C.: Rethinking Grain-Based Carbohydrates Part II Georgianna Donadio 2011
jorge999 commented on the word ruminant
Villa
It's time,
I've learned enough,
I'm going from the world awhile
to my imagined Villa,
I cannot wait to see it,
Queen Ann's lace,
and careless daisies,
will smile as I pass,
On a hill,
happy ruminants,
deep peace in a heaven of grass.
-jorge999
November 5, 2009