Meaning & use
biped
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Meanings
nouncountable
An animal that moves on two legs, especially one that normally walks upright on two legs.
Grammar: Countable; use a/an or the plural bipeds. Often used in biology and paleontology.
Patterns
- a biped that walks on two legs
- an obligate biped
- a facultative biped
Humans are the only living bipeds that walk upright all the time.
Birds are bipeds, while most mammals are quadrupeds.
The fossil shows that this dinosaur was a fast-running biped.
adjectivebefore a noun
Having two legs; walking on two legs. (Less common than bipedal.)
Grammar: Used mainly before a noun, as in 'a biped robot'; the adjective bipedal is more usual in scientific writing.
Patterns
- a biped robot
- a biped stance
The engineers designed a biped robot that can climb stairs.
In a biped posture, the center of gravity shifts forward.
Word forms
| plural | bipeds |
|---|
Common combinations
- obligate biped
- Humans are obligate bipeds; we cannot walk comfortably on all fours.
- facultative biped
- Some lizards are facultative bipeds and run on two legs only when escaping.
- bipedal locomotion
- Bipedal locomotion freed the hands for carrying tools.
- upright biped
- The skeleton belonged to an upright biped about three feet tall.
Synonyms and how they differ
- bipedal
- Use bipedal as an adjective ('bipedal dinosaur'); biped is the noun for the animal itself.
- two-legged
- A plain descriptive adjective; biped is the technical noun used in biology.
Opposites
Word family
- bipedal adjective
- Walking on two legs; the usual adjective form.
- bipedalism noun
- The condition or habit of walking on two legs.
- bipedally adverb
- In a two-legged manner.
Commonly confused: biped or quadruped? biped or bipedal?
biped vs quadruped
A quadruped walks on four legs; a biped walks on two. The prefixes bi- (two) and quad- (four) show the difference.
biped vs bipedal
Bipedal is the adjective; biped is mainly the noun. Say 'a bipedal ape', not 'a biped ape' in formal writing.
Practice
Which sentence uses biped correctly?
Choose one answer.
Biped is a countable noun for a two-legged animal, so 'a biped that hops on two legs' fits. Option 1 contradicts the meaning (two legs, not four); option 2 uses bipedal, an adjective, as a noun; option 3 uses an incorrect preposition pattern.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “biped”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.