Mammal

//ˈmæməl// noun

noun ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An animal of the class Mammalia.; Characterized by being warm-blooded, having hair or fur and producing milk with which to feed its young.
  2. 2
    any warm-blooded vertebrate having the skin more or less covered with hair; young are born alive except for the small subclass of monotremes and nourished with milk wordnet
  3. 3
    An animal of the class Mammalia.; Characterized by having vertebrae and three bones in the inner ear and one in the jaw.

Synonyms

All synonyms
mammalianaardvarkaardwolfalpacaamphibianangora goat

Example

More examples

"The whale is not a fish but a mammal."

Etymology

From Modern Latin Mammalia, coined 1758 by Linnaeus for the class of mammals, from neuter plural of Late Latin mammalis (“of the breast”), from Latin mamma (“breast”), perhaps cognate with mamma (mother).

Related phrases

crown mammalmammal-like reptilemarine mammalsea mammalstem mammalair breatherall animalsanimal hairanimal kingdomfour feetfurry animalgeneric animal

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.