a. and sb. Also 7 quadrupedall. [ad. late L. quadrupedālis (Bæda), f. quadrupēs: see prec. and -AL. Cf. obs. F. quadrupedal (Godef.).]
A. adj. 1. Of animals: Four-footed. Also transf. of things.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, iii. 54. It [veal] is of an excellent … nutriture … exceeding all quadrupedall creatures.
1725. Hist. Reg. (1724), Chron. Diary 57. Even the Quadrupedal Animals were strangely terrify’d.
1821–5. Barham, in Life & Lett., I. ii. 80. According as he found them more or less intelligent than his quadrupedal companion.
1864–5. Wood, Homes without H., i. (1868), 6. Shafts through which the quadrupedal miner [sc. mole] ejects the materials which it has scooped out.
1869. Browning, Ring & Bk., VIII. 510. Beasts quadrupedal, mammiferous, Do credit to their beasthood.
1881. Harper’s Mag., Oct., 696/2. A solemn collision of two forces riding quadrupedal stools.
2. Of, belonging, or appropriate to, a quadruped.
Quadrupedal signs, zodiacal signs named after quadrupeds (Phillips 1696; cf. quadrupedian above, and BESTIAL 1).
1747. Gentl. Mag., XVII. 480. Worms of various kinds are bred in animal bodies, quadrupedal as well as human.
1850. H. Miller, Footpr. Creat., viii. (1874), 149. The round ligament in the head of the quadrupedal thigh-bone.
1875. Lyell’s Princ. Geol., II. III. xxxiv. 261. The natural tendency in man to resume the quadrupedal state.
† 3. ‘Four foot long’ (Phillips, 1678). Obs.–0
† B. sb. A quadruped. Obs. rare.
1643. Howell, Parables refl. on Times (1644), 148. I will take warning by the Eagle, the King of Volatills, and by the Lyon, King of Quadrupedals. Ibid. (1660), Parly of Beasts, 11. My bloud … I confess, to be the coldest of any Quadrupedals.
