a. Zool. Also 7 cetacious, (erron.) setaceous. [f. as prec.; see -ACEOUS.] Belonging to the order Cetacea; of the whale kind, of the nature of the whale.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 203. Cetacious and cartilagineous fishes.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., Digress. 370. Such [fishes] as are not Setaceous … have not Respiration, properly so call’d.
1759. B. Stillingfleet, Œcon. Nat., in Misc. Tracts (1762), 84. The cetaceous fish have warm blood, and therefore they bring forth their young alive, and suckle them with their teats.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), I. 19. The Cetaceous Animals … Linnæus’s seventh Order of Mammalia.
transf. 1862. B. Taylor, Home & Abr., Ser. II. 418. I suspected a huge cetaceous mirthfulness behind this repose.
