Webster's Online Dictionary
with Multilingual Thesaurus Translation

 
Earth's largest dictionary with more than 1226 modern languages and Eve!

Definition: -OID

Part of Speech Definition
Expression 1. A suffix or combining form meaning like, resembling, in the form of; as in anthropoid, asteroid, spheroid.[Websters].

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Top

Extended Definition: -OID

-oid

-oid is a suffix much used in the sciences and mathematics to indicate a "similarity, not necessarily exact, to something else". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, -oid is derived from the Latin suffix -oides taken from Greek and meaning "having the likeness of".

Thus, asteroid means "like a star" and rhomboid means "like a rhombus". There are many examples of such words: anthropoid, alkaloid, factoid, humanoid, planetoid, trapezoid, android, and so forth.

When nouns formed using -oid are turned into adjectives, the suffix usually becomes -oidal.

New Oxford American Dictionary[1] has:

-oid: suffix forming adjectives and nouns:

  1. Zoology denoting an animal belonging to a higher taxon with a name ending in -oidea: : hominoid | percoid.
  2. denoting form or resemblance : asteroid | rhomboid.

ORIGIN from modern Latin -oides, from Greek -oeidēs; related to eidos ‘form.’

References

  1. Supplied in Mac OS 10.5 and used in Dictionary application

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "-oid". Image Credit.
 bookmark   email   print   tweet   facebook  



Topics by Level of Interest: -OID

Topics sorted by level of Interest Level (1=low, 600=high)     Topics sorted Alphabetically Level (1=low, 600=high)
-oid 3     -oid 3

Source: the editor, created by/for EVE to gauge likely levels of human interest in linguistically triggered topics (compiled across various sources, such as Wikipedia and specialty expression glosses).