Oid

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A suffix used in biology to indicate a shape or form resembling something else
2. a linguistic element conveying a sense of having the character or appearance of another
3. a morphological marker denoting an object or entity in relation to its similarity to a particular type or category

Etymology: The ending "-oid" comes from the Greek "eidos," meaning "form" or "shape." That same root gives English "idea," which originally meant a visible form or appearance before it came to mean a mental image. A "-oid" thing is literally "having the form of" something else, so "spheroid" is shaped like a sphere and "anthropoid" is shaped like a human. The Greek ending "-oeidēs" passed into Latin as "-oides" and then into French as "-oïde," from which English took it. Scientists and writers used it freely to coin new descriptive terms, mostly in technical fields such as biology, geometry, and chemistry. Because it attaches to existing nouns, it is always a suffix rather than a free-standing word.

Synonyms: like, resembling, similar