Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Walking with the entire sole of the foot on the ground, as humans, bears, raccoons, and rabbits do.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Walking on the whole sole of the foot; having the characters of, or pertaining to, the Plantigrada: opposed to digitigrade.
- noun A plantigrade mammal; a member of the Plantigrada.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Walking on the sole of the foot; pertaining to the plantigrades.
- adjective Having the foot so formed that the heel touches the ground when the leg is upright.
- noun (Zoöl.) A plantigrade animal, or one that walks or steps on the sole of the foot, as man, and the bears.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of an animal walking with the entire
sole of the foot on the ground. - noun A plantigrade
animal
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of mammals) walking on the whole sole of the foot (as rabbits, raccoons, bears, and humans do)
- noun an animal that walks with the entire sole of the foot touching the ground as e.g. bears and human beings
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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His hind feet are plantigrade, that is, they rest upon the ground from heel to toe; and his back curves like the segment of a circle.
Popular Adventure Tales Mayne Reid 1850
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His hind-feet are plantigrade, that is, they rest upon the ground from heel to toe; and his back curves like the segment of a circle.
The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North Mayne Reid 1850
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A mammal – characterised by its large body with stocky legs, long snout and plantigrade paws – will, by preference, drop its faeces within a forested area.
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Fingers pointing diagonally forward and laterally, sprawling forelimbs, plantigrade feet.
Life's Time Capsule: Questions about Pterosaurs #1 Peter Bond 2009
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The supposed stegosaurian track Deltapodus Whyte & Romano, 1994 (Middle Jurassic of England) is sauropod-like, elongate and plantigrade, but many blunt-toed, digitigrade, large ornithopod-like footprints (including pedal print cast associated with the manus of Stegopodus Lockley & Hunt, 1998) from the Upper Jurassic of Utah, better fit the stegosaurian foot pattern.
Neoceratopsian publications for 2008 ReBecca Foster 2009
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Because human legs obviously work well for humans, Russell & Séguin proposed that human-like legs would also work for a human-like dinosauroid, and they gave the creature plantigrade feet.
Dinosauroids revisited Darren Naish 2006
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It failed to inform anyone about the arrival of the bears, it failed to apply any protocol for helping them and squandered a large part of the grant it received from the European Union for promotion and protection of the plantigrade.
Hell in the Pyrenees 2006
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Because human legs obviously work well for humans, Russell & Séguin proposed that human-like legs would also work for a human-like dinosauroid, and they gave the creature plantigrade feet.
Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006
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“By this point, for both Ada and myself, our beloved plantigrade was a painful sight” (in reference to a stuffed bear). alopecia.
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Sure enough, after the four plantigrade toes, he went for the dewclaw.
grouse Diary Entry grouse 2006
yarb commented on the word plantigrade
"It was plantigrade, its hind legs rather the longer..."
- Wells, The Time Machine
June 5, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word plantigrade
"As for Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity as of executing more than a severely plantigrade walk across the stage."
"The Peace Offering" by Saki, p 75 of The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories (NYRB paperback)
October 14, 2013