mammal: [19] Etymologically, mammal denotes an ‘animal that suckles its young’. The word is a derivative of mammalia [18], the term for that whole class of animals, coined by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus from Latin mammālis ‘of the breast’. This in turn was based on mamma ‘mother, breast’, which has been traced back to a prehistoric Indo-European *mammā.
There are obvious links with ‘mother’-terms in other languages, such as Greek mámmē, French maman, Italian mamma, Russian mama, Welsh mam, and English mamma and mummy, but whether a sustained chain of descent and borrowing is involved, or simply parallel formation based on the syllable ma, imitative of the sound of a suckling baby, is not clear. Mammary [17] is an English derivative of Latin mamma, in the sense ‘breast’. => mamma, mammary, mummy
mammal (n.)
1826, anglicized form of Modern Latin Mammalia (1773), coined 1758 by Linnaeus for the class of mammals, from neuter plural of Late Latin mammalis "of the breast," from Latin mamma "breast," perhaps cognate with mamma.
例文
1. Its hairy body suggests a mammal .
毛むくじゃらの体は哺乳動物であることを示している。
2.The function of a mammal 's fur is to insulate the body.
哺乳動物の毛皮を保温する機能は、体を保温することにあります。
3.A whale is a kind of mammal .
クジラは哺乳動物である。
4.The whale is the largest mammal in creation.
クジラはすべての哺乳動物の中で最大である。
5.There is a close analogy between the gills of a fish and the lungs of a mammal .