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Webster 1913 Edition

Adj.

[L.

anas

anatis

, a duck +

-ferous

(Zool.)

Producing ducks; – applied to Anatifæ, under the absurd notion of their turning into ducks or geese. See

Adj.

[L. anas, a duck and fero, to produce.] Producing ducks.

anatiferous

Producing ducks. Formerly used of barnacles, since it was believed that they produced ducks and geese.
If there be anatiferous trees, whose corruption breaks forth into barnacles; yet, if they corrupt, they degenerate into maggots, which produce not them again. - Brown's Vulgar Errours.