rabbityadj.
/ˈrabᵻti/, U.S. /ˈræbədi/ Resembling, characteristic of, or suggestive of a rabbit; containing many rabbits.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > order Lagomorpha (rabbits and hares) > [adjective] > like or characteristic of a rabbit
rabbity1821
rabbitish1834
1821 H. E. Fox in Trans. Philol. Soc. 1925–32 161 Lady Euston..looking beautiful, though her mouth is rabbitty.
1887 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 826 These rabbiters insisted on being shifted out to more rabbity country.
1897 W. C. Hazlitt Four Generations Lit. Family II. 207 The legs are the only edible part..and..are of a rabbity flavour.
a1930 D. H. Lawrence Last Poems (1932) 98 There are too many people on earth Insipid, unsalted, rabbity, endlessly hopping.
1974 T. P. Whitney tr. A. Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipel. I. ii. ii. 544 But somehow this is hard for our rabbity brains to grasp.
1976 Gramophone Nov. 878/3 My own family's verdict on the book [sc. Watership Down] was that it was ‘extraordinarily rabbitty’.
2003 A. Greenwald Nothing feels Good Pref. p. x He..flashes a rabbity, nervous smile.
Compounds
Parasynthetic, as rabbity-eared, rabbity-faced, etc.; also rabbity-looking adj.
ΚΠ
1931 D. L. Sayers Five Red Herrings xvi. 177 The rabbity-faced fellow in the train.
1962 W. H. Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 120 A leporello who, in real life, is a rabbity-looking..professor.
1994 Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) 5 Aug. 22/3 Judd Nelson's almost unrecognizable rabbity-eyed turn as the record exec from hell.
1996 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 11 Aug. b1 The rabbity-faced 11-year-old subject of ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’, is trapped in the purgatory of the preteen-age years.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1821