cleithrum

cleithrum noun: a large bone in fishes, which extends upward from the base of the pectoral fin and anchors to the cranium above the gills, forming the posterior edge of the gill chamber.

Noun

cleithrum (plural cleithra)

A large bone in fishes, which extends upward from the base of the pectoral fin and anchors to the cranium above the gills, forming the posterior edge of the gill chamber.
- The secondary arch consists of four pieces of bone, the posttemporal, supracleithrum, cleithrum and postcleithrum.[…]The cleithrum is the largest piece and the other elements are attached to it.1993, J. J. Videler, Fish Swimming, Springer, page 66
- The main components of which are, from dorsal to ventral, the post-temporal, supracleithrum, cleithrum and the postcleithra.[…]The cleithra of either side of the body are connected with the pharyngeal jaw apparatus and with the urohyal by the bilateral pharyngocleithralis musculature and the median...2000, Melanie L. J. Stiassny, “Chapter 6: The Skeletal System”, in Gary Kent Ostrander, editor, The Laboratory Fish, Academic Press, page 116

Forms of cleithrum

plural	cleithra

Origin of cleithrum

From Ancient Greek κλεῖθρον (kleîthron).

Words formed from cleithrum

Questions about cleithrum

What does cleithrum mean?: Cleithrum means a large bone in fishes, which extends upward from the base of the pectoral fin and anchors to the cranium above the gills, forming the posterior edge of the gill chamber.
What part of speech is cleithrum?: Cleithrum is a noun.
What is the plural of cleithrum?: The plural of cleithrum is cleithra.

Words near cleithrum in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: cleithrum (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “cleithrum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cleithrum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.