dactylus

[ dak-tuh-luhs ]

noun

, plural dac·ty·li [dak, -t, uh, -lahy, -lee].

1. an enlarged portion of the leg after the first joint in some insects, as the pollen-carrying segment in the hind leg of certain bees.

Word History and Origins

Origin of dactylus¹

New Latin < Greek; dactyl

Example Sentences

There is the Pholas Dactylus, which resembles a small, animated sausage with a pudding head.

From Project Gutenberg

Since the diameter of a poppy-seed is not less than 1⁄40th of a dactylus, and spheres are to one another in the triplicate ratio of their diameters, a sphere of diameter 1 dactylus is not greater than 64,000 poppy-seeds, and, therefore, contains not more than 64,000 � 10,000 grains of sand, and a fortiori not more than 1,000,000,000, or 109 grains of sand.

From Project Gutenberg

“Plurimum orantes decebit quando paene in ultimo Obtinet sedem beatam, terminet si clausulam Dactylus spondeus imam, nec trochaeum respuo; Plenius tractatur istud arte prosa rhetorum.”

From Project Gutenberg

On the coasts of Malta, Sardinia, Italy, &c., they find a fish called the Dactylus, or Date, or Dale, because it resembles the palm-date in form; this first insinuates itself into the stone by a hole not bigger than the hole made by a needle.

From Project Gutenberg

It has the shape of a date, or of a finger; whence its name of Dactylus, which in Greek signifies a finger.

From Project Gutenberg