One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
1A wild cat with yellowish-brown fur (sometimes spotted), a short tail, and tufted ears, found chiefly in the northern latitudes of North America and Eurasia.
Genus Felis, family Felidae: the Eurasian lynx (F. lynx) and the Canadian lynx (F. canadensis or F. lynx)
- ‘This year we have scheduled a tiger, three lynxes, a cheetah, two pumas, a hippopotamus, and 500 rabid rats.’
- ‘The British Big Cats Society says its 15-month survey indicates there is little doubt that big cats such as leopards, lynxes and pumas are roaming Britain.’
- ‘Experts say there is ‘little doubt’ that big cats such as panthers, lynxes and pumas are indeed roaming the countryside, following a massive increase in sightings.’
- ‘In the Adirondack mountains of New York, an attempt to reintroduce lynxes failed, with 18 of 37 mortalities attributed to road kills.’
- ‘There are elves and centaurs and unicorns and mermaids and flying lynxes and all shapes of mythical things.’
- ‘Jewell and Alibhai have begun using WildTrack to census tapirs in Argentina, Bengal tigers in India and Bangladesh, and Iberian lynxes in Spain and Portugal.’
- ‘Other key threats to the lynx are changing habitat, unselective trapping methods (many lynxes are killed by snares), road accidents and hunting (including deliberate and accidental shooting).’
- ‘Most of the zoo's remaining animals, including their lynxes, reptiles and baboons, are being moved to specialist facilities elsewhere.’
- ‘His action exemplifies what the late Stephen Jay Gould, on his essay on the lynxes, aptly called ‘the authoritarian form of the empiricist myth’.’
- ‘Hunting-tourism has become big business in Romania's Carpathian Mountains, the last place in Europe apart from Russia, where many large carnivores, bears, wolves and lynxes, can be found.’
- ‘A millionaire businessman has bought a 23,000-acre estate in the Highlands in a bid to reintroduce the wolf, the brown bear and the lynx to the wild.’
- ‘Given the small size of the prey hunted by modern lynxes, it is not likely that this extinct species was a predator of large mammals.’
- ‘We're cautious but hopeful that if we can get all the lynxes we need, we'll be able to add to the population in the wild.’
- ‘The entire preserve sits inside the Kootenai National Forest and is populated by wildlife, including bears and trout as well as wolverines, lynxes, and mountain goats.’
- ‘The Canada lynx, the only lynx in North America, is a rare forest-dwelling cat of northern latitudes.’
- ‘This year leaflets about the habits of bears, wolves and lynxes were given to all the schools in mountain villages.’
- ‘Other predators are red foxes, coyotes, wolves, bear, mountain lions, lynx, bobcats, eagles, and great horned owls.’
- ‘There have been four recent reports of an animal - variously described as a lynx, puma or panther - in Dumfriesshire.’
- ‘We can also make an evolutionary prediction: I expect that lions, leopards, and lynxes will also have the same 247 base pair deletion, and a similar array of stop codons.’
- ‘They can be kittens one moment and pumas or lynxes the next.’
- 1.1mass noun The fur of the lynx.
- ‘Fox, lynx, mink as well as shearing being dyed in strong colours dominate this season, whether it be trimmings on collar and cuffs or luxurious linings.’
- ‘The clothes were made of rayon polyester and trimmed with lynx fur.’
- ‘It was at one time the main commercial port for lynx and sable furs, beeswax, timber, grain, hunting falcons, and walrus ivory.’
- 1.2another term for caracal
- ‘The coolest part of that experience was getting to hold a nine-week old Desert African Lynx named Kenya.’
- ‘Six years ago they paid $1700 for a blind African lynx at an auction because another bidder was going to put the animal down and mount it.’
- ‘Caracals, also commonly called African lynx though not actually a lynx, weigh at adulthood from 25 to 45 pounds and are native to the grasslands of Africa and parts of Asia.’
Middle English: via Latin from Greek lunx.
1An inconspicuous northern constellation (the Lynx), between Ursa Major and Gemini.
- 1.1as genitive Lyncis /ˈlɪnsɪs/ Used with preceding letter or numeral to designate a star in the Lynx constellation.‘the star Alpha Lyncis’
- 1.1as genitive Lyncis /ˈlɪnsɪs/ Used with preceding letter or numeral to designate a star in the Lynx constellation.
Via Latin from Greek lunx.
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