Platypellic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing a pelvis that is flattened from front to back and wide from side to side, a shape often noted in obstetrics
2. Referring to a pelvic bone structure that is shallow and broad, with an oval opening at the entrance
3. Characterizing a pelvis that is unusually flat and wide, with its inlet elongated across rather than round

Etymology: "Platypellic" describes the pelvis of a person or animal that is unusually broad and flattened from side to side, the kind of shape anthropologists measure in skeletons. It is a variant of "platypelvic," and the two share a construction: "platy-," from Greek "platys" meaning "broad" or "flat," joined to "pelvic," from the Latin "pelvis," meaning "basin." The result is a descriptive technical compound, built the way many scientific adjectives were in the modern era, by fusing classical roots into a new term for a precise physical trait. "Platy-" appears in other scientific coinages such as "platyrrhine," used of broad-nosed monkeys, which shows the same pattern of describing an anatomical feature by its width.