ethologicaladj.

1727 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. II Ethological,..pertaining to Discourses and Treatises of Ethicks or Morality.

1775 J. Ash New Dict. Eng. Lang. Ethological, treating of morality, belonging to ethics.

1798 R. H. Southwell Intellect. Freedom ii. 66 They might have acquired..a sufficient knowledge of their every ethological obligation.

1839 D. D. Barnard Addr. Lit. Societies Amherst Coll. 8 I propose to present..an ethological view..of the Constitution of the United States. I wants to show you, if I can, the Great Moral Law of the System.

1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic II. vi. v. §6 The ethological consequences of particular circumstances of position.

1883 W. Minto in Academy 29 Dec. 425 The son is sufficiently candid for the most exacting student of ethological truth.

1918 Bull. Univ. of South Feb. 81 Opportunity is given in private conferences for students to get ethological aid in ‘finding’ themselves and preparing for the larger life awaiting them.

2006 C. Heydt Rethinking Mill's Ethics iv. 140 With paternal authority, we find the degradation of those cared for–they quickly lose their vigour and energy (a point established for Mill by ethological analysis and made famous in On Liberty).

1859 G. Rawlinson Bampton Lect. 368 The ethological accuracy of the Pentateuch as respects Oriental manners and customs generally, has never been questioned.

1865 F. M. Müller in Times 20 Apr. 7/1 What may be called ethological as distinguished from ethnological researches.

1907 W. G. Sumner Folkways xvii. 597 The comedies are always long and wordy and generally tedious. They run in fixed molds, and have unyielding conventions to obey. Rarely have they ethological value.

1880 Zool. Rec. 1878 15 Echinodermata 2 The creature [sc. Asterina gibbosa] is apparently an ‘ethological variety’ [Fr. variété éthologique] of A. cephea.

1908 Westm. Gaz. 1 Aug. 15/2 Animal psychology in France is no longer the quoting of instances of the supernatural intellectual qualities of the tame dog... The ethological method has sprung into existence.

1959 New Biol. 28 71 The reproductive segregation which it brings about is commonly called ethological isolation.

1982 R. Hinde Ethology (1986) ii. §ii. 43 Thus the concepts of ‘sign stimulus’ and ‘social releaser’, though basic to many ethological endeavours, are slippery at the edges.

2000 D. J. Bem in M. S. Kimmel & A. Aronson Gendered Society Reader 99 Ethological studies of birds show that an exotic-becomes-erotic mechanism is actually a component of sexual imprinting.