ANATINE/ˈænətaɪn/

Resembling or characteristic of a duck.

There’s a large set of adjectives ending in -ine (derived from Latin) that refer to animals, among which the most common are canine, relating to the dog, feline for cat, bovine, ox, ovine sheep, and lupine for the wolf. Others are murine for mouse, leporine for hare, sciurine for squirrel, cervine for deer, and anserine for goose.

Anatine is from Latin anas, a duck. The principal stamping ground of this word is in scientific papers, in part because the zoological family containing the ducks is the Anatidae. However, it does very occasionally appear in literature. Perhaps its best-known recent manifestation is in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Mason & Dixon of 1997: “I took refuge in wild theorizing, — if Angels be the next higher being from Man, perhaps the Duck had ’morphos’d into some Anatine Equivalent, acting as my Guardian, — purely, as an Angel might.”

This Australian chap isn’t anatine, he’s psittacine

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