dactylous

Adjective

dactylous

1. Finger-like.
   • The larger ossicles are striated on the surface, the striae being produced along the anterior margin so as to give it a dactylous appearance; the median striation is longest, and extends to the point of the rhomboidally-shaped scale.1887, James W. Davis, “The Fossil Fishes of the Chalk of Mount Lebanon, In Syria”, in The Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society, page 476
   • basal dactylous cell of the sterile branchlets tapering into the conical and strongly acuminate ultimate cell ; basal dactylous cell of the fertile branchlets rounded at the apex;1941, Biodiversity, Evolution and Biogeography of Plants, page 69
2. Having or pertaining to fingers or toes.
   • Congenital dactylous malformations in 15 of 401 malformed lambs ( 3.7 percent ) are described .1972, The Cornell Veterinarian - Volume 62, page 327
   • Although the Famennian tetrapods have dactylous limbs and more heavily constructed vertebral columns than lobe-finned fishes, they still appear to have been largely aquatic.2000, Henry Gee, Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life, page 277
3. Pertaining to dactyls.
   • There is a charming sonnet at the end, whcih comes to our lips like a draught of vintage that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep deved earth; and is might refreshing after the dactylous jolting of two hundred pages, and indicates the possession of original powers in the writer.1852, William Tait, Christian Isobel Johnstone, “Literature”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 19, page 506