prehensile

adjective

pre·hen·sile prē-ˈhen(t)-səl

-ˈhen-ˌsī(-ə)l

: adapted for seizing or grasping especially by wrapping around

prehensile tail

: gifted with mental grasp or moral or aesthetic perception

prehensility

(ˌ)prē-ˌhen-ˈsi-lə-tē

noun

Did you know?

You may be familiar with prehensile from the animal world: monkeys have prehensile tails, elephants have prehensile trunks, giraffes have prehensile tongues, etc. But can you comprehend where this word comes from? Can you apprehend its derivation? The Latin verb prehendere, meaning "to seize or grasp," is the ancestor of a number of English terms, including comprehend, apprehend, and prehensile. Prehensile came into English in the 18th century via French préhensile, from Latin prehensus, the past participle of prehendere.

Examples of prehensile in a Sentence

The monkey has a prehensile tail. The elephant has a prehensile trunk.

Recent Examples on the Web Native to Central and South America, the honey bear (Potos flavus) and the bearcat are interestingly the only carnivorous mammals in the world that have what’s called a prehensile tail. —

Marisa Sloan, Discover Magazine, 3 June 2023 What does Rico's prehensile tail do? —

Victoria Moorwood, The Enquirer, 21 Oct. 2022 That’s because the regions that the antivirals target aren’t just similar across SARS-CoV-2 variants: they are remarkably conserved across every one of the hundreds of coronavirus strains discovered, as quintessentially a part of coronaviruses as prehensile hands are to human beings. —

Dan Werb, Time, 16 Mar. 2022 Many of the most expensive hands on the market differentiate themselves by the number and variety of selectable prehensile grips. —

IEEE Spectrum, 21 Aug. 2022 Males will kidnap and gang-rape females with their prehensile penises, using alliances of several males to keep females isolated from the rest of the group. —

Christie Wilcox, Discover Magazine, 2 Sep. 2015 Tanystropheus with three-meter-long necks, aetosaurs with armored shields on their backs and drepanosaurs with prehensile tails, reigned before dinosaurs took the throne. —

Jason P. Dinh, Discover Magazine, 1 July 2022 The Hunter’s foot steps on the upper leg of the corpse, the prehensile spur digging deep, pinioning the body to the ground. —

Wyatt Mason, Harper’s Magazine , 6 Jan. 2023 D’Manus is a 10 DoF, low-cost, reliable prehensile hand. —

IEEE Spectrum, 21 Aug. 2022 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'prehensile.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.