Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
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adj
Pertaining to running, flightless birds with no keels on their sternums (as opposed to carinate).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: ratitate
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A member of a diverse group of mostly large, running, flightless birds that lack keels on their sternums, mostly extinct such as the elephant bird and the moa, but including the extant cassowaries, emu, kiwi, ostrich, and rhea; formerly grouped together in the order Struthioniformes, and including the Paleognathae except the tinamous.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
flightless birds having flat breastbones lacking a keel for attachment of flight muscles: ostriches; cassowaries; emus; moas; rheas; kiwis; elephant birds
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: ratite bird, flightless bird
Antonyms: carinate
Broader terms: bird
Narrower terms: ostrich, Struthio camelus, cassowary, emu, Dromaius novaehollandiae, Emu novaehollandiae, kiwi, apteryx, rhea, Rhea americana, nandu, Pterocnemia pennata, elephant bird, aepyornis, moa
History
From Latin ratis (“raft”) + -ite; ratites (unlike other birds) lack a keel on their sternum, and rafts are vessels that lack keels.
Across languages
7 source translations are retained for this English entry.
