Word Meanings - SKUNK - Book Publishers vocabulary database

Any one of several species of American musteline carnivores of the genus Mephitis and allied genera. They have two glands near the anus, secreting an extremely fetid liquid, which the animal ejects at pleasure as a means of defense. Note: The common

Additional info about word: SKUNK

Any one of several species of American musteline carnivores of the genus Mephitis and allied genera. They have two glands near the anus, secreting an extremely fetid liquid, which the animal ejects at pleasure as a means of defense. Note: The common species of the Eastern United States (Mephitis mephitica) is black with more or less white on the body and tail. The spotted skunk , native of the Southwestern United States and Mexico, is smaller than the common skunk, and is variously marked with black and white. Skunk bird, Skunk blackbird , the bobolink; -- so called because the male, in the breeding season, is black and white, like a skunk. -- Skunk cabbage , an American aroid herb (Symplocarpus foetidus) having a reddish hornlike spathe in earliest spring, followed by a cluster of large cabbagelike leaves. It exhales a disagreeable odor. Also called swamp cabbage. -- Skunk porpoise. See under Porpoise.

Related words: (words related to SKUNK)

• ANIMALIZATION
  1. The act of animalizing; the giving of animal life, or endowing with animal properties. 2. Conversion into animal matter by the process of assimilation. Owen.
• ANIMALCULISM
  The theory which seeks to explain certain physiological and pathological by means of animalcules.
• ALLICIENT
  That attracts; attracting. -- n.
• ALLINEATION; ALINEEATION
  Alignment; position in a straight line, as of two planets with the sun. Whewell. The allineation of the two planets. C. A. Young.
• MUSTELINE
  Like or pertaining to the family Mustelidæ, or the weasels and martens.
• ANIMALITY
  Animal existence or nature. Locke.
• COMMONER
  1. One of the common people; one having no rank of nobility. All below them even their children, were commoners, and in the eye law equal to each other. Hallam. 2. A member of the House of Commons. 3. One who has a joint right in common ground.
• MEPHITIS
  A genus of mammals, including the skunks. (more info) 1. Noxious, pestilential, or foul exhalations from decomposing substances, filth, or other source.
• SECRETE
  To separate from the blood and elaborate by the process of secretion; to elaborate and emit as a secretion. See Secretion. Why one set of cells should secrete bile, another urea, and so on, we do not known. Carpenter. Syn. -- To conceal; hide. See
• ALLITERAL
  Pertaining to, or characterized by alliteration.
• AMERICANIZATION
  The process of Americanizing.
• GENERABILITY
  Capability of being generated. Johnstone.
• GENERALIZED
  Comprising structural characters which are separated in more specialized forms; synthetic; as, a generalized type.
• FETIDNESS
  The quality or state of being fetid.
• ANIMALLY
  Physically. G. Eliot.
• ANIMALNESS
  Animality.
• GENERALIZABLE
  Capable of being generalized, or reduced to a general form of statement, or brought under a general rule. Extreme cases are . . . not generalizable. Coleridge
• GENERA
  See GENUS
• ALLITERATOR
  One who alliterates.
• GENERANT
  Generative; producing; esp. ,
• GALLIASS
  See GALLEASS
• UNDERSECRETARY
  A secretary who is subordinate to the chief secretary; an assistant secretary; as, an undersecretary of the Treasury.
• DALLIANCE
  1. The act of dallying, trifling, or fondling; interchange of caresses; wanton play. Look thou be true, do not give dalliance Too mnch the rein. Shak. O, the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strifeTennyson. 2. Delay or procrastination.
• MAJOR GENERAL
  . An officer of the army holding a rank next above that of brigadier general and next below that of lieutenant general, and who usually commands a division or a corps.
• KAKARALLI
  A kind of wood common in Demerara, durable in salt water, because not subject to the depredations of the sea worm and barnacle.
• SCALLION
  A kind of small onion , native of Palestine; the eschalot, or shallot. 2. Any onion which does not "bottom out," but remains with a thick stem like a leek. Amer. Cyc.
• CORALLIGENOUS
  producing coral; coraligerous; coralliferous. Humble.
• UNCOMMON
  Not common; unusual; infrequent; rare; hence, remarkable; strange; as, an uncommon season; an uncommon degree of cold or heat; uncommon courage. Syn. -- Rare; scarce; infrequent; unwonted. -- Un*com"mon*ly, adv. -- Un*com"mon*ness, n.
• UNREGENERACY
  The quality or state of being unregenerate. Glanvill.
• COWPER'S GLANDS
  Two small glands discharging into the male urethra.
• REALLIANCE
  A renewed alliance.
• IMPALLID
  To make pallid; to blanch. Feltham.
• HEMEROCALLIS
  A genus of plants, some species of which are cultivated for their beautiful flowers; day lily.
• HAEMATOCRYSTALLIN
  See HEMATOCRYSTALLIN
• FELLOW-COMMONER
  A student at Cambridge University, England, who commons, or dines, at the Fellow's table.
• CRYSTALLIZATION
  The act or process by which a substance in solidifying assumes the form and sructure of a crystal, or becomes crystallized. 2. The body formed by crystallizing; as, silver on precipitation forms arborescent crystallizations. Note: The systems of
• BALLISTER
  A crossbow.
• MISALLIED
  Wrongly allied or associated.