Word.ws English Dictionary

sciuroid

sciuroid noun: any rodent from the family Sciuridae.

Noun

sciuroid (plural sciuroids)

  1. Any rodent from the family Sciuridae.
    • The loss of the internal carotid artery in the sciuroids seems likewise to go back to the early Tertiary. The oldest known sciuroid, Protosciurus (table XII) , stems from the Middle Oligocene [BLACK, 1963) , and the earliest sciuroids presumably evolved from central members of the paramyid group...1971, Acta Anatomica: Supplementum - Volumes 58-62, page 65
    • It may also be noted that the fossil record stretches back no farther than the Oligocene on macroscelidoid elephant shrews (Patterson, 1965), also on sciuroids (Black, 1963), and no farther than the Miocene on lorisoids (Walker, 1974) .2012, Morris Goodman, Molecular Anthropology, page 192

Adjective

sciuroid (comparative more sciuroid, superlative most sciuroid)

  1. Of or pertaining to the taxonomic family Sciuridae.
    • The feet are very sciuroid, and while they are the most generalized rodent feet, they show the distinctive characteristics of the order already firmly fixed, in the peculiar reduction of the pollex, presence of radial sesamoid, characteristic form of astragalus etc.1910, Joel Asaph Allen, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
    • A sciuroid rodent to farmers well known— He is rather destructive to crops— Is apposite, novel and ready to hand As arms of the "Issue of Ops"1913, The Single Tax Review - Volume 13, page 36
  2. Resembling the tail of a squirrel, as branches which are close and dense, or spikes of grass like barley.
    • Tufts large, very laxly cohering, nearly without rhizoids, silky or yellowish green, fainly shining; stem elongate, irregularly divided or prolonged into sciuroid-curved obtuse branches; leaves loosely imbricate, crowded, when dry sub-rugose , when moist patent, short decurrent, indistinctly...1896, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin: Science series, page 347
    • Plants dioceious, in habit comparable to Breutelia, Primary stem creeping, naked, secondary stems arcuate, sciuroid, simple, branching or producing stolons.1997, Pierre Tixier, Joseph Guého, Introduction to Mauritian Bryology, page 103

Examples of sciuroid in a sentence

  • The loss of the internal carotid artery in the sciuroids seems likewise to go back to the early Tertiary.1971, Acta Anatomica: Supplementum - Volumes 58-62, page 65:
  • These findings are contrary to the opinion that sciuroids are relatively archaic forms, based on their cuspidate dentition.2013, W. Patrick Luckett, Jean-Louis Hartenberger, Evolutionary Relationships among Rodents, page 347:
  • In overall habitus, Maiopatagium is most comparable with the sciuroid gliding rodents with similar proportions of the propatagium, plagiopatagium, and uropatagium (Fig. 6.25).2018, Frank Zachos, Robert Asher, Mammalian Evolution, Diversity and Systematics, page 217:

Forms of sciuroid

Noun
pluralsciuroids
Adjective
comparativemore sciuroid
superlativemost sciuroid

Origin of sciuroid

From translingual Sciurus + -oid.

Questions about sciuroid

What does sciuroid mean?
Sciuroid means any rodent from the family Sciuridae.
How do you use sciuroid in a sentence?
The loss of the internal carotid artery in the sciuroids seems likewise to go back to the early Tertiary.
What part of speech is sciuroid?
Sciuroid can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of sciuroid?
The plural of sciuroid is sciuroids.

Words near sciuroid in the dictionary

  1. sciurines
  2. sciurognath
  3. sciurognathous
  4. sciurognaths
  5. sciurognathy
  6. sciuroid
  7. sciuroids
  8. sciuromorph
  9. sciuromorphic
  10. sciuromorphous
  11. sciuromorphs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sciuroid (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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