cheiropterygium
cheiropterygium noun: the typical pentadactyloid limb of the higher vertebrates.
Noun
cheiropterygium (plural cheiropterygia)
- The typical pentadactyloid limb of the higher vertebrates.
- All anatomists are agreed that the limbs of the higher Vertebrata are derived from those of Fishes, but the gulf between the two types of limbs is so great that there is room for a very great diversity of opinion as to the mode of evolution of the cheiropterygium.1885, Francis Maitland Balfour, A Treatise on Comparative Embryology: Vertebrata, page 621
- The relation of the ichthyopterygium to the cheiropterygium is also at present obscure; the structure of the latter is fundamentally identical in all those animals in which it occurs.1887, Alfred Cort Haddon, An Introduction to the Study of Embryology, page 204
Forms of cheiropterygium
| plural | cheiropterygia |
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Origin of cheiropterygium
From New Latin cheiropterygium, from Ancient Greek χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + πτερύγιον (pterúgion, “wing, fin”).
Questions about cheiropterygium
- What does cheiropterygium mean?
- Cheiropterygium means the typical pentadactyloid limb of the higher vertebrates.
- What part of speech is cheiropterygium?
- Cheiropterygium is a noun.
- What is the plural of cheiropterygium?
- The plural of cheiropterygium is cheiropterygia.
Words near cheiropterygium in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cheiropterygium (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “cheiropterygium.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cheiropterygium. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.