Fossa
//ˈfɑsə// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A pit, groove, cavity, or depression.
- 2 A large nocturnal reddish-brown catlike mammal (Cryptoprocta ferox) of the civet family, endemic to the rainforests of Madagascar. It is slender, long-tailed and has retractile claws and anal scent glands.
- 3 largest carnivore of Madagascar; intermediate in some respects between cats and civets wordnet
- 4 A long, narrow, shallow depression on the body of an extraterrestrial body, such as a planet or moon.
- 5 a concavity in a surface (especially an anatomical depression) wordnet
Example
More examples""Not only do we have the grooved teeth, we do have other structures in the skull that perhaps may be where the venom gland resided in a fossa or depression above the tooth row in the upper jaw," said David Burnham."
Etymology
Etymology 1
Unadapted borrowing from Latin fossa (“a ditch, trench, fosse”). Doublet of fosse.
Etymology 2
[Alt: Cryptoprocta ferox Borrowing from Malagasy fosa which likely once referred to the Malayan weasel (Mustela nudipes) prior to a semantic shift, thus cognate with Malay pusak and Tagalog pusa both meaning "cat".
Related phrases
More for "fossa"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.