- 1
A quadruped is an animal that has four legs and walks on them — a dog, a horse, a cat, a cow. People use this word when they want to sound careful or scientific; in ordinary talk we just say a four-legged animal. Though actually, scientists often prefer a nearby word, tetrapod, which can cover animals whose had four limbs even if the animal itself does not walk on four feet now — a whale, a bird, even a snake. Quadruped stays closer to the picture in front of you: four feet, on the ground, living that way. You will meet it in biology class and in older writing. It is not a rude word, but it is not a warm one either; it puts the animal in a group, not in a story.
四足動物
組成Borrowed from French quadrupède, from Latin quadrupēs, “four-footed”: quadru-/quadri- (four) + pes/ped- (foot). Another way to cut the English word is quadru- + -ped. Doublet of tetrapod.
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
quadrupednoun/ˈkwɒdɹəpɛd/
- 1
A four-footed or four-legged animal.
- Bradshaw knew nothing of the 'wind of change' that was coming in a century's time, so he contented himself with an exposition on the Vale of the White Horse, "deriving its singular denomination from the gigantic carving of that useful quadruped, on a high chalky hill beyond".
- 2
A mammal ambulating on all fours.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。