Literary notes about prehensile (AI summary)
Literary usage of "prehensile" vividly emphasizes an organism’s ability to grasp or hold, often serving to highlight evolutionary adaptation or to imbue a sense of dynamic agility. Writers employ the term to describe specialized animal features—from the gripping feet of sailors in rugged seafaring imagery [1] and the conversion of primate tails into a “fifth hand” [2], to more exotic appendages like the elephant’s trunk [3] or a creature’s prehensile lizard claws in a moment of instinctive survival [4]. At times, the word is extended metaphorically to human or humanoid traits, suggesting an almost instinctual, artful capacity for manipulation [5, 6]. By using "prehensile" in these varied contexts, authors not only delineate physical attributes but also evoke deeper notions of adaptability and the primal interconnectedness between form, function, and the natural world.
- At night the sailors lower the side awnings, crawling along the railings with their naked prehensile feet.
— from As Seen By Me by Lilian Bell - The extremity of the tail in some American monkeys has been converted into a wonderfully perfect prehensile organ, and serves as a fifth hand.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - For example: the ribs become, in the serpent, organs of locomotion, and the snout is extended, in the elephant, into a prehensile instrument.
— from Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers - The monster toppled, and flung out its prehensile lizard claws in an instinctive effort to catch itself.
— from The Fifth-Dimension Tube by Murray Leinster - But methinks this, too, is to be wiser than Him, who made the hand so supple and prehensile.”
— from The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade - The little man raised his hands, and as he did so, both young men noticed how prehensile and delicate they were—the hands of a master workman. "
— from Chance in Chains: A Story of Monte Carlo by Guy Thorne
