Word.ws English Dictionary

desmostylian

desmostylian adjective: of or pertaining to the Desmostylia, an extinct order of marine mammals.

Adjective

desmostylian (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Desmostylia, an extinct order of marine mammals.

Noun

desmostylian (plural desmostylians)

  1. Any member of the Desmostylia.
    • Herbivores have been the largest bottom-dwelling marine animals since at least the Late Oligocene, with the evolution of desmostylians and the Early Pliocene replacement by large sirenians, and perhaps since the Late Cretaceous if some sea turtles were herbivorous at that time.2016 January 16, “Gigantism and Its Implications for the History of Life”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI

Forms of desmostylian

pluraldesmostylians

Origin of desmostylian

From translingual Desmostylia + -ian.

Questions about desmostylian

What does desmostylian mean?
Desmostylian means of or pertaining to the Desmostylia, an extinct order of marine mammals.
What part of speech is desmostylian?
Desmostylian can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near desmostylian in the dictionary

  1. desmosomes
  2. desmosomic
  3. desmosterol
  4. desmosterolosis
  5. desmosterols
  6. desmostylian
  7. desmostylians
  8. desmostylid
  9. desmostylids
  10. desmoteplase
  11. desmotomies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: desmostylian (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:

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