taxidermy

noun

taxi·der·my ˈtak-sə-ˌdər-mē

: the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals and especially vertebrates

taxidermic

ˌtak-sə-ˈdər-mik

adjective

taxidermist

ˈtak-sə-ˌdər-mist

noun

Examples of taxidermy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The object in question was a twelve-foot taxidermy crocodile wearing a saddle and bridle, its long mouth open in an evil grin. —

Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2023 With his faux taxidermy, Daniel Roseberry referenced the animals in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. —

José Criales-Unzueta, Vogue, 27 Oct. 2023 Art and science swirl together in the afterlife with a photo essay by Ted Cavanaugh that captures the morbid beauty of taxidermy. —

Annie Colbert, Popular Science, 13 Sep. 2023 In ‘The Origin of Evil,’ secrets and lies (and taxidermy) on the Côte d’Azur. 🏈 USC vs. Arizona State four things to watch: Trojans embrace ‘villain’ mode. —

Kevinisha Walker, Los Angeles Times, 23 Sep. 2023 As for Balto, researchers sequenced his genome using DNA from his taxidermy remains at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. —

Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Apr. 2023 Weinstein says her taxidermied animals were not harmed for the purpose of taxidermy and had already died by other means. —

Roxana Becerril, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 June 2023 Many credit Boyce for the modern evolution of taxidermy that is the current standard today. —

Chris Dorsey, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2023 One of them is Konkle’s Hannah, the groom’s odd sister who lives in a tent, does taxidermy, shoots archery, and dresses like an extra plucked from a Wes Anderson film. —

Erica Gonzales, ELLE, 13 July 2023 See More

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

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French taxidermie, from Greek táxis "order, arrangement" + dérma "skin" + French -ie -y entry 2 — more at taxis, -derm

Note: Coinage of French taxidermie has been attributed in recent references (as, for example, A. Scheersoi and S.D. Tunicliffe, editors, Natural History Dioramas—Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes, Springer, 2019, p. 13) to the naturalist and taxidermist Louis Dufresne (1752-1832). Dufresne used the word in the title and text of an article in tome XXI of the Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle (Paris, An XI—1803): "taxidermie… des mots τάξις, ordre, arrangement, et δέρμα, peau" (p. 507; "taxidermy … from the words táxis, order, arrangement, and dérma, skin"). (Authorship of the article is attributed to Dufresne in a footnote by the dictionary's editor for ornithology, Louis Pierre Vieillot.) However, taxidermie appears three years earlier in a chapter of the Traité élémentaire et complet d'ornithologie by the zoologist François Marie Daudin (1776-1803), entitled "Sur l'art de taxidermie considéré par rapport aux Oiseaux; c'est-à-dire, sur l'art de dépouiller, de droguer, de conserver et de monter des Peaux des Oiseaux" (tome 1, Paris, 1800—An VIII, p. 439; "On the art of taxidermy considered in relationship to birds, or on the art of removing, treating, preserving and mounting the skins of birds"). Neither Daudin nor Dufresne give any indication that either was the originator of the word.