sea cow

Any of several large herbivorous marine mammals of the order Sirenia, having a paddlelike tail, forelimbs shaped like flippers, and no hind limbs, and including the manatee, the dugong, and Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis stelleri) of the northern Pacific, which became extinct in the late 1700s. Also called sirenian.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sea cow

1. (Animals) any sirenian mammal, such as a dugong or manatee

2. (Animals) an archaic name for walrus

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sea′ cow`

the manatee or dugong.

[1605–15]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

sea cow - any of two families of large herbivorous aquatic mammals with paddle-shaped tails and flipper-like forelimbs and no hind limbs

sirenian, sirenian mammal

aquatic mammal - whales and dolphins; manatees and dugongs; walruses; seals

order Sirenia, Sirenia - an animal order including: manatees; dugongs; Steller's sea cow

manatee, Trichechus manatus - sirenian mammal of tropical coastal waters of America; the flat tail is rounded

dugong, Dugong dugon - sirenian tusked mammal found from eastern Africa to Australia; the flat tail is bilobate

Hydrodamalis gigas, Steller's sea cow - extinct large sirenian mammal formerly found near the Asiatic coast of the Bering Sea

Translations

海牛

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

"How shall I know Sea Cow when I meet him?" said Kotick, sheering off.

He was going to find Sea Cow, if there was such a person in the sea, and he was going to find a quiet island with good firm beaches for seals to live on, where men could not get at them.

Then he remembered in a flash what the Burgomaster gull had screamed to him when he was a little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled backward in the water, for he knew that he had found Sea Cow at last.

Then the Sea Cow began to travel northward very slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time, and Kotick followed them, saying to himself, "People who are such idiots as these are would have been killed long ago if they hadn't found out some safe island.

Kotick followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea Cow was anything of a swimmer.

No one but a sea cow or a seal would have dreamed of there being such a place, and when he looked back at the cliffs even Kotick could hardly believe that he had been under them.

A week later he and his army (nearly ten thousand holluschickie and old seals) went away north to the Sea Cow's tunnel, Kotick leading them, and the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots.

The sea cows went on schlooping and grazing and chumping in the weed, and Kotick asked them questions in every language that he had picked up in his travels; and the Sea People talk nearly as many languages as human beings.

The sea cows had separated and were browsing lazily along the edges of the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen.

View in context

The orphaned dugong, which is a species of sea cow, was found in April off the coast of Krabi, southern Thailand.

Whisperer

If you have kids under six, it's best to head to the Three Sister's Springs for a sea cow viewing instead.

Manatee PARTY; Travel

Replica of the Qataraspis deprofundis, a 400mn year old species of armour-plated fish A hammerhead shark and other marine life The skeleton of a dugong or sea cow. Just beneath it are dugong bone fossils that are over 20mn years old A sand cat and its young "I haven't been to other galleries but this is a splendid start for a tour of the early beginnings of life, particularly in Qatar.

NMoQ tour - a time travel spanning 700mn years