pithecoid

[ pith-i-koid, pi-thee-koid ]

adjective

1. belonging or pertaining to the genus Pithecia and related genera, including the saki monkeys.
2. (loosely) apelike; monkeylike.

pithecoid

/ pĭth′ĭ-koid′,pī-thē′koid /

1. Resembling or relating to the apes, especially the anthropoid apes.

Word History and Origins

Origin of pithecoid¹

1860–65; < New Latin pithēc ( us ) ape (< Greek píthēkos ) + -oid

Example Sentences

After writing a book to establish the descent of man from apes, Professor Huxley is obliged to confess that "the fossil remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem to take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become what he is."

From Project Gutenberg

Some of these believe themselves sprung from trees, as if they had still reminiscences of the arboreal habits of a pithecoid ancestry.

From Project Gutenberg

The primordial anthropoid was probably, in this respect, on much the same footing as his pithecoid kin.

From Project Gutenberg

Nowadays Sir William is generally remembered, when he is, because he happened to be Oscar's father, or because he was, as an outraged Victorian put it, a "pithecoid person of extraordinary sensuality."

From Time Magazine Archive

But no amount of such suppositions or imaginations will furnish Science with the scantiest apology for a foothold, nor can the germs of language attributed to pithecoid communities or the sagest of their patriarchs, be considered as of any greater value than the speeches put into the mouths of the animals by �sop or "Uncle Remus."

From Project Gutenberg