Pereiopod

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Any of the jointed walking legs attached to the thorax of a crustacean such as a crab, lobster, or shrimp
2. A segmented appendage on the chest region of crustaceans that is used mainly for walking along the seabed
3. One of the paired locomotor limbs borne by the thoracic segments of decapod crustaceans and similar animals

Etymology: A pereiopod is one of the walking legs attached to the thorax of a crustacean such as a crab, lobster or shrimp. The name is built from two Greek elements. "Pereion" is the Greek word for the segmented trunk region, the part of a crustacean's body that carries the legs, and "-pod" comes from Greek "pous" (foot), the same root behind "octopus" and "tripod". Put together, the word literally means something like "thorax-foot". The compound is a technical coinage from Greek elements, so it describes the animal's anatomy directly rather than carrying any older folk sense. Its usefulness is in distinguishing these limbs from the pleopods, the swimmeret-like appendages on the abdomen, which are named by the same pattern with a different prefix.

Synonyms: pereopod