digitigrade

[ dij-i-ti-greyd ]

adjective

1. walking on the toes, as most quadruped mammals.

noun

1. a digitigrade animal.

digitigrade

/ ˈdɪdʒɪtɪˌɡreɪd /

adjective

1. (of dogs, cats, horses, etc) walking so that only the toes touch the ground

noun

1. a digitigrade animal

Word History and Origins

Origin of digitigrade¹

From French, dating back to 1825–35; digiti-, -grade

Example Sentences

It has two arms and two legs, but its legs are more bird-like than human, with an inverted knees appearance that resembles so-called digitigrade animals such as birds, cats and dogs that walk on their toes rather than on flat feet.

From Seattle Times

I learned that a digitigrade is an animal that stands or walks on its toes. I learned the term “laurices”: rabbit fetuses, once considered a delicacy, and always used in the plural, because a single laurice wouldn’t even amount to a snack.

From The New Yorker

The horse is eminently “digitigrade,” standing on the extremity of the single digit of each foot, which is kept habitually in a position approaching to vertical.

From Project Gutenberg

Sem′i-pellū′cid, imperfectly transparent; Sem′ipen′niform, half-penniform; Sem′i-per′fect, nearly perfect; Sem′i-pis′cine, half-fish; Sem′i-plant′igrade, incompletely plantigrade: partly digitigrade; Sem′i-plas′tic, imperfectly plastic.—ns.

From Project Gutenberg

As, for example—and it is an authentic example of a scheme of correlation—the first-grade children are given as the center of their work The Old Woman Who Found the Sixpence; from this story we take out the dog, which we study as the type of digitigrade carnivora.

From Project Gutenberg