Library / English Dictionary

FROG

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: frogged    , frogging   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various tailless stout-bodied amphibians with long hind limbs for leaping; semiaquatic and terrestrial species

Synonyms:

anuran; batrachian; frog; salientian; toad; toad frog

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("frog" is a kind of...):

amphibian (cold-blooded vertebrate typically living on land but breeding in water; aquatic larvae undergo metamorphosis into adult form)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "frog"):

South American poison toad (a South American toad)

tongueless frog (almost completely aquatic frog native to Africa and Panama and northern South America)

sheep frog (mostly of Central America)

eastern narrow-mouthed toad; Gastrophryne carolinensis (small toad of southeastern United States)

Gastrophryne olivacea; western narrow-mouthed toad (small secretive toad with smooth tough skin of central and western North America)

tree-frog; tree frog; tree toad (arboreal amphibians usually having adhesive disks at the tip of each toe; of southeast Asia and Australia and America)

spadefoot; spadefoot toad (a burrowing toad of the northern hemisphere with a horny spade-like projection on each hind foot)

Bombina bombina; fire-bellied toad (toad of central and eastern Europe having red or orange patches mixed with black on its underside)

Alytes cisternasi; midwife toad (similar in habit to Alytes obstetricians)

Alytes obstetricans; midwife toad; obstetrical toad (European toad whose male carries the fertilized eggs wrapped around its hind legs until they hatch)

true toad (tailless amphibian similar to a frog but more terrestrial and having drier warty skin)

Liopelma hamiltoni (primitive New Zealand frog with four unwebbed toes on forefeet and five on hind feet)

Ascaphus trui; bell toad; ribbed toad; tailed frog; tailed toad (western North American frog with a taillike copulatory organ)

tree-frog; tree frog (any of various Old World arboreal frogs distinguished from true frogs by adhesive suckers on the toes)

crapaud; Leptodactylus pentadactylus; South American bullfrog (large toothed frog of South America and Central America resembling the bullfrog)

barking frog; Hylactophryne augusti; robber frog (of southwest United States and Mexico; call is like a dog's bark)

robber frog (small terrestrial frog of tropical America)

leptodactylid; leptodactylid frog (toothed frogs: terrestrial or aquatic or arboreal)

ranid; true frog (insectivorous usually semiaquatic web-footed amphibian with smooth moist skin and long hind legs)

Derivation:

frog (hunt frogs for food)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A decorative loop of braid or cord

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("frog" is a kind of...):

adornment (a decoration of color or interest that is added to relieve plainness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person of French descent

Synonyms:

frog; Gaul

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("frog" is a kind of...):

French person; Frenchman; Frenchwoman (a person of French nationality)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Hunt frogs for food

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "frog" is one way to...):

capture; catch (capture as if by hunting, snaring, or trapping)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

frog (any of various tailless stout-bodied amphibians with long hind limbs for leaping; semiaquatic and terrestrial species)

Credits

 Context examples: 

It was but a stone, wedged between frog and shoe in the off fore-foot, but it was a minute or two before we could wrench it out.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Scientists used human cells that resembled neurons and neurons from frogs to investigate how the change in FUS from liquid droplets to small gels process is regulated and what makes it go awry.

(Mechanism behind neuron death in motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia discovered, University of Cambridge)

He searched little ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

They swim from their infancy like frogs, and are able to continue long under water, where they often take fish, which the females carry home to their young.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A taxonomic class of vertebrates that include frogs, toads, newts, salamanders, and gymnophiona.

(Amphibia, NCI Thesaurus)

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have uncovered a specialised population of skin cells that coordinate tail regeneration in frogs.

(Scientists find new type of cell that helps tadpoles’ tails regenerate, University of Cambridge)

He laughed so the while, like a great croaking frog, that I might have caught him had my breath not been as short as his legs were long.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and run away.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly—if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore—often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In 2004, Japanese researchers originally discovered that the Shisa gene played a role in the formation of frog heads and, named the gene after a mythological, large-headed, guardian figure depicted in statues throughout southern Japan.

(‘Sticky’ gene may help Valium calm nerves, National Institutes of Health)