cursorial
Americanadjective
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adapted for running, as the feet and skeleton of dogs, horses, etc.
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having limbs adapted for running, as certain birds, insects, etc.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of cursorial
1830–40; < Late Latin cursōri ( us ) of running ( cursory ) + -al 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It gives him an excuse to invent his own ‘modern’ non-bird dinosaurs, including weird new horned dinosaurs, cursorial tyrannosaurids…
From Scientific American • Apr. 4, 2014
Some big-bodied cursorial and semi-cursorial squamates are also variable with respect to foot posture, with digitigrady being used when the animals move quickly and plantigrady or semi-plantigrady being used at slow speeds.
From Scientific American • Apr. 1, 2013
Humans and dogs became the designated cursorial, or distance running, species.
From New York Times • Apr. 25, 2012
It may well have been the competition of the horses which led to the extinction of these cursorial rhinoceroses.
From Darwin and Modern Science by Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
New Zealand has no indigenous mammalia, but in their place great cursorial birds with but rudimentary wings.
From The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality by Zimmermann, G. A.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
