Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Lemur |
LemurNoun1. Large-eyed arboreal prosimian having foxy faces and long furry tails. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "lemur" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1808. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Health | A genus of the family Lemuridae consisting of five species: L. catta (ring-tailed lemur), L. fulvus, L. macaco (acoumba or black lemur), L. mongoz (mongoose lemur), and L. variegatus (white lemur). Most members of this genus occur in forested areas on Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Lemurs are part of a class of primates known as prosimians. These animals are the evolutionary predecessors of monkeys (simians). The term "lemur" is generically used for several families of prosimians: Cheirogaleidae, Megaladapidae, Lemuridae, Indridae, and Daubentoniidae. It is derived from the Latin word lemures, which means "spirits of the night." This likely refers to many lemurs' nocturnal behavior and their large, reflective eyes.
In taxonomy, the genus Lemur has only one member: Lemur catta, or the ring-tailed lemur. It is easily recognized by its black and white striped tail, and is found in many zoos.
Lemurs are found naturally only on the island of Madagascar, and some smaller surrounding islands, including the Comoros. They made their way across the ocean after the island broke away from the continent of Africa. While they were displaced in the rest of the world by monkeys, apes, and other primates, the lemurs were safe from competition on Madagascar and differentiated into a number of species. These ranged in size from about 30 grams to perhaps as large as 200 kilograms. The larger species have all become extinct since humans settled on Madagascar, and since the early 20th century the largest lemurs reach about 7 kilograms. Typically, the smaller lemurs are active at night (nocturnal), while the larger ones are active during the day (diurnal).
All lemurs are endangered species, due mainly to habitat destruction (deforestation) and hunting. Although conservation efforts are under way, options are limited because of the lemurs' limited range and because Madagascar is desperately poor. Currently, there are approximately 32 living lemur species.
One of the foremost lemur research facilities is the Duke University Primate Center. http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/


Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lemur."
Crosswords: Lemur |
| English words defined with "lemur": angwantibo, Arctocebus calabarensis, aye-aye ♦ Black lemur, bush baby, bushbaby ♦ colugo, Cynocephalus variegatus ♦ Daubentonia madagascariensis, Diadem lemur ♦ flying cat, flying lemur ♦ galago, genus Lemur, golden potto ♦ Half ape ♦ indri, Indri brevicaudatus, Indri indri, indris ♦ kinkajou, Kukang ♦ Lemur catta, Loris gracilis ♦ Macaco, Macauco, Madagascar cat, Maholi, Maki, Malmag, Maucaco, meerkat, mierkat, Mouse lemur ♦ Nycticebus pygmaeus, Nycticebus tardigradua ♦ Perodicticus potto, potto ♦ ring-tailed lemur, ruffed lemur ♦ slender loris, Slow lemur, slow loris, Strepsorhine ♦ Vari ♦ Weasel lemur, White-fronted, Woolly macaco, Woolly maki ♦ Yellow lemur. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Lemur" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Czech (lemur), German (lemur), Romanian (lemur), Serbo-Croatian (lemur), Swedish (lemur). |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Lemur" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 83.33% of the time. "Lemur" is used about 12 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 83.33% | 10 | 111,207 |
| Noun (proper) | 16.67% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 12 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "lemur": Black lemur ♦ Diadem lemur ♦ flying lemur ♦ genus Lemur ♦ lemur catta ♦ Lemur macaco ♦ Lemur mongos ♦ Lemur murinus ♦ lemur varius ♦ mouse lemur ♦ ruffed lemur ♦ slow lemur ♦ spectral lemur ♦ weasel lemur ♦ woolly lemur ♦ yellow lemur. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "lemur": lemur-like. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "lemur"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | ليمور نوع من القردة, الهوبر حيوان من القرود. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | лемур (macaco). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | lemur. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | vaeselmaki (sportive lemur weasel lemur), musemakier (mouse lemur), halvmaki (gentle lemur), dvaergmaki (fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, fork-marked mouse lemur). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | wezelmaki (sportive lemur weasel lemur), vorkstaartdwergmaki (fork-marked mouse lemur), muismaki (mouse lemur), halfmaki (gentle lemur), dwergmaki (hairy-eared dwarf lemur). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | میمون پوزه دارماداگاسکار(ج.ش.), میمون پوزه دار, میمون لمور. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | puoliapina. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | maki. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | lemur. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | κερκοπίθηκοσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | קוף "שועלים. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | makimajom (macaco), maki. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | lemure. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 狐猿 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | きつねざる. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | scaanjoon keylley. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | emurlay cítrico (citric, citrus). (various references) lemur. (various references) лемур (macaco). (various references) lemur. (various references) lémur. (various references) lemur. (various references) สัตว์จำพวกลิงชนิ"หนึ่ง. (various references) maki, madagaskar maymunu. (various references) лемур (macaco). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Allocebus, Cheirogaleus medius, Hapalémur, Lemuridae, Lepilemur, Microcebus murinus, Phaner furcifer. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "lemur": lemures, lemurine, lemuroid, lemuroids, lemurs. (additional references) | |
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"Lemur" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Alemu, alxenor, Ellmauer, Elmyr, emur, Kemour, lamor, laur, Lemeur, Lemire, Lemmer, Lemmie, lemmur, lemo, lemor, Lemoui, lemus, leur, leure, lewur, Leymoor, limir, Llenor, Lodmoor, lomar, semur, temur. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "lemur" (pronounced lē"mer) |
| 3 | -ē" m er | Creamer, dreamer, femur, reamer, schemer, screamer, steamer, streamer. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-l-m-r-u" | |
-1 letter: lure, merl, mule, mure, rule. | |
-2 letters: elm, emu, leu, lum, mel, rem, rue, rum. | |
-3 letters: el, em, er, me, mu, re, um. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-l-m-r-u" | |
+1 letter: lemurs, lumber, lumper, mauler, muller, relume, rumble, rumple. | |
+2 letters: bumbler, clumber, crumble, crumple, drumble, elytrum, fumbler, glummer, grumble, humbler, humeral, jumbler, lemures, lumbers, lumpers, lumpier, maulers, misrule, morulae, moulder, moulter, muddler, muffler, mullers, multure, mumbler, muzzler, numeral, plumber, plumier, plumper, relumed, relumes, replumb, rumbled, rumbler, rumbles, rumpled, rumples, serumal, slumber, slummer, tumbler, tumbrel, tummler. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 65 6D 75 72 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).-.. . -- ..- .-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001100 01100101 01101101 01110101 01110010 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)L e m u r |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004C 0065 006D 0075 0072 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4671798784 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Translations: Ancient 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Orthography 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.