dryopithecineadj.n.
/ˌdrʌɪə(ʊ)ˈpɪθᵻsiːn/, U.S. /ˌdraɪoʊˈpɪθəˌsin/ Palaeontology.
A. adj.
Of or relating to extinct apes belonging to, or closely related to, the genus Dryopithecus or the subfamily Dryopithecinae.
ΚΠ
1935 Man 35 6 It is almost certain..that the Dryopithecine line of evolution leading to Man had already at a considerably earlier time become distinct from the line leading to the modern large anthropoid apes.
1961 Man 61 26/1 It is certainly to be hoped that one day a Dryopithecine skull may be discovered.
1992 N.Y. Times 17 Mar. c1/3 Dozens of dryopithecine specimens have come to light in the last two decades... The best studied ones are found in East Africa and named Kenyapithecus.
B. n.
A dryopithecine ape.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > mammals > order Primates > suborder Anthropoidea (higher primates) > [noun] > group Catarrhinae (Old World monkey) > member of superfamily Hominoidea (apes and humans) > family Hominidae (humans and ancestors ) > extinct or hypothetical ape-man
missing link1820
apeman1864
Pithecanthropus1873
Oreopithecus1878
Broken Hill1921
dryopithecine1948
Zinjanthropus1959
Orrorin2001
Sahelanthropus2002
1948 Amer. Anthropologist 50 12 The configuration of the symphyseal area in some, at least, of the Dryopithecines, appears to be structurally ancestral to the condition in both human and modern anthropoid jaws.
1974 Current Anthropol. 15 429/1 The ephemeral occurrence of the ramapithecines in Eurasia and Africa, amidst a crowd of dryopithecines, suggests that they were rare strays from elsewhere.
2002 G. M. Eberhart Mysterious Creatures II. 607/1 Other Miocene apes probably related to the dryopithecines are known from Gansu and Yunnan Provinces in China.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
adj.n.1935