Word.ws English Dictionary

pilos

pilos is the alternative form of pileus.

Meaning of pileus

Noun

pileus (plural pilei)

  1. The cap of a mushroom.
    • The stem is easily separable from the pileus at its junction, in this respect being similar to Amanita, Amanitopsis, Lepiota and others.1903, George Francis Atkinson, chapter VII, in Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc., 2nd edition, New York: Henry Holt
  2. The bell of a jellyfish.
  3. A small thin cloud attached to a cumulus cloud.
    • The most short-lived of all the accessory clouds, pileus is also the most beautiful.2011, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloud Collector's Handbook, Hachette UK, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    cap cloud, scarf cloud
  4. (Ancient-Rome, historical) A conical felt hat worn in Ancient Rome and Greece.
    • Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus.1859, William Smith, editor, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, page 920
  5. The top of the head of a bird, from the bill to the nape.
    Synonyms:
    pileum, crown

Forms of pilos

pluralpiloi

Origin of pilos

Ancient Greek [Term?]

Questions about pilos

What is pilos the alternative form of?
Pilos is the alternative form of pileus.

Words near pilos in the dictionary

  1. piloncillo
  2. pilones
  3. pilonidal
  4. pilons
  5. pilorelaxation
  6. pilos
  7. pilosan
  8. pilosans
  9. pilosaurid
  10. pilosaurids
  11. pilose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilos (page history and authors); pileus (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: “pilos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pilos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.