Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A book consisting of a collection of descriptions of real and fabulous animals, often including a moral or allegorical interpretation of each animal's behavior. Bestiaries were particularly popular in medieval Europe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A fighter with wild beasts in the ancient Roman amphitheater.
- noun A name formerly sometimes given to a book treating of animals.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A treatise on beasts; esp., one of the moralizing or allegorical beast tales written in the Middle Ages.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
medieval treatise of various real orimaginary animals .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a medieval book (usually illustrated) with allegorical and amusing descriptions of real and fabled animals
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bestiary.
Examples
-
And according to Medieval Folklore, an early Syrian [bestiary] is quite explicit: The unicorn approaches the virgin, 'throwing himself upon her.
Archive 2007-10-01 2007
-
And according to Medieval Folklore, an early Syrian [bestiary] is quite explicit: The unicorn approaches the virgin, 'throwing himself upon her.
Book Review: Legends from Darkwood: The Unicorn Hunters. 2007
-
This bestiary is included in the second section of 45 Mercy Street, first published in 1976, two years after Sexton’s suicide.
Bestiary U.S.A. : Rigoberto González : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007
-
So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do.
-
So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do.
-
So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do.
-
Ross: A bestiary is a "book of beasts," a collection of stories giving allegorical descriptions of animal behavior.
Steve Leveen: E-books: What Would da Vinci Say? Ross King's New Reading Steve Leveen 2010
-
Ross: A bestiary is a "book of beasts," a collection of stories giving allegorical descriptions of animal behavior.
Steve Leveen: E-books: What Would da Vinci Say? Ross King's New Reading Steve Leveen 2010
-
Ross: A bestiary is a "book of beasts," a collection of stories giving allegorical descriptions of animal behavior.
Steve Leveen: E-books: What Would da Vinci Say? Ross King's New Reading Steve Leveen 2010
-
"The bestiary really was the key element of the manuscript that intrigued me the most, not just because it has all these unpublished texts that are scholarly, but a bestiary is a book that is concerned with the symbolic meanings of animals," Gwara said.
University of South Carolina library's rare book display to get medieval text 2007
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.