PREHENSILE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Prehensile

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Prehensile

adjective

Adapted for grasping especially by wrapping around an object.

Having a keen intellect.

Immoderately desirous of acquiring e.g. wealth. Synonyms: avaricious, covetous, grabby, grasping, greedy. "Casting covetous eyes on his neighbor's fields" , "A grasping old miser" , "Grasping commercialism" , "Greedy for money and power" , "Grew richer and greedier" , "Prehensile employers stingy with raises for their employees"

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Etymology of 'Prehensile'

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"Prehensile" Quotes from Famous Books

... has a long slim fin projecting upwards from the tail almost at right angles to it; the blenny, whose facial expression has caused it to be known as the sarcastic blenny; the graceful sea-horse, who swings on seaweed with a prehensile tail like that of a monkey—and the male of which hatches the eggs instead of the mother, and not the least extraordinary, the three-cornered trunk-fish whose front view is the most unfishlike apparition possible. These and hundreds of others Colin learned to ...

— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... called the giant cacique (pronounced cay-seek'), which as a nest-builder far surpasses our oriole. Often the cacique's hanging nest is from four to six feet long. The oriole builds to escape the red squirrels, but the cacique has to reckon with the prehensile-tailed monkeys. ...

— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

Words linked to "Prehensile" : intelligent, nonprehensile, acquisitive