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Definition of "feral" []

  • Existing in a wild or untamed state. (adjective)
  • Having returned to an untamed state from domestication. (adjective)
  • Of or suggestive of a wild animal; savage: a feral grin. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "feral" in a sentence
  • "As Hélène Mulholland reports, Godwin told the London assembly that "the fact that the term feral is still being used in terms of young people in our inner city … is a great challenge to us as a city.""
  • "The use of the term "feral" was first used in about 2000 following the death of Damilola Taylor."
  • "Colonel Hamilton Smith, the able writer on dogs, does not acknowledge some of these wild races, but thinks they are what he calls feral, or domestic dogs which have regained their liberty, and have subsisted for many generations on their own intelligence."