a. [ad. L. vulpīn-us, f. vulpēs fox: see -INE1. So obs. F. vulpin (16th cent.), Sp. vulpino, It. volpino.]
1. Characteristic of a fox; similar to that of a fox.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, II. [I.] xii. 34. There is an innocentiall prouidence, as well as the slynesse of a vulpine craft.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, lxix. Round those vulpine retreats was a labyrinthean maze of wrinkles, vulgarly called crows feet.
1847. Helps, Friends in C., I. i. 12. A very close vulpine nature, all eyes, all ears, may succeed better in deceit.
1865. Sat. Rev., 4 Feb., 146/1. Men of business glide about in glossy black cloth, with vulpine features, and hands as brown as a mummy.
1894. J. A. Steuart, In Day of Battle, i. A vulpine calculation and duplicity marked all his doings.
2. Resembling a fox; spec. in Vulpine Opossum or Phalanger.
1789. Phillip, Voy. Botany Bay, xv. 150. Vulpine Opossum. This is not unlike the common fox in shape, but considerably inferior to it in respect to size.
1865. Chambers’s Encycl., VII. 459/2. The Vulpine Phalanger (P. vulpina), also called the Vulpine Opossum.
c. 1880. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., III. 225. The Vulpine Phalanger, an animal with long loose fur, which inhabits New South Wales, Western Australia, and North Australia.
b. fig. Cunning, sly.
1830. Fraser’s Mag., I. 599. How cunningly the vulpine Cantab has shapen his phraseology.
3. Consisting of foxes.
1849. W. S. Mayo, Kaloolah, vi. (1850), 56. Which [food] soon brought numerous lupine and vulpine visitors.
1887. Field, 19 Feb., 233/2. Sparrow Gorse … seems to offer small inducement to the vulpine fraternity.
4. Of or pertaining to a fox or foxes.
1854. Thoreau, Walden (1884), 293. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.
1885. Field, 3 Oct., 501/1. A singular instance of vulpine sagacity and daring was witnessed.
Hence Vulpinism, foxy character.
1851. Carlyle, Excurs. Paris, in Last Words T. C. (1892), 187. A healthy Human Animal, with due beaverism (high and low), due vulpinism, or more than due. Ibid. (1858), Fredk. Gt., IX. V. (1865), II. 457. He was without guile, and had no vulpinism at all.
