Prosody. a foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short in quantitative meter, or one stressed followed by two unstressed in accentual meter, as in gently and humanly.
a finger or toe.
Also called: dactylic. prosody a metrical foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short ( ) Compare bacchius
zoology any digit of a vertebrate
What does -dactyl mean? The combining form -dactyl is used like a suffix with two related meanings. Depending on the context, it can mean "fingered, possessing fingers" or "toed, possessing toes." Essentially, -dactyl means "having digits." It is occasionally used in scientific terms, especially in anatomy and zoology. The form -dactyl comes from Greek dáktylos, meaning “finger” or “toe.” In poetry, the metrical foot known as a dactyl also derives from this same Greek root. Learn more at our entry for dactyl. What are variants of -dactyl?The form -dactyl is a variant of -dactylous, as in tetradactylous. While not a variant of -dactyl, -dactyly is also related to this form. Want to know more? Read our Words That Use article for these combining forms.
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin dactylus < Greek dáktylos finger, a dactyl, referring to the three joints of the finger
< Greek Dáktyloi ( Idaîoi ) (Idaean) craftsmen or wizards (plural of dáktylos; see dactyl)
A dactyl is a unit of poetry consisting of three syllables, the first of which is stressed. The word "poetry" is itself a great example of a dactyl! When a poem is made up of three-syllable metrical feet, and the emphasis naturally lands on the first syllable of each foot, you call those units dactyls. The Greek root is daktylos, which means "unit of measure" but also "finger." The literary term came from the "finger" meaning — the three bones in a finger represent the three syllables in a dactyl. These lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" are written in dactyls: "Flashed all their sabres bare, / Flashed as they turned in air / Sabring the gunners there."
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
So developing a robot to solve the cube, even a humanoid one, is not all that remarkable on its own, and less so at the sluggish speed Dactyl operates.
From The Verge • Oct. 15, 2019
In 1991, the now-dissolved manufacturing arm of the Virtuality Group introduced a set of games, including the then-revolutionary Dactyl Nightmare, in arcades across the country.
From Slate • Oct. 27, 2017
Irregularly shaped Ida is 56 kilometers in its longest dimension, while Dactyl is about 1.5 kilometers across.
From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016
Nearly a decade earlier the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft flew by Gaspra, 18 kilometres in its longest dimension, as well as by Ida, 31 kilometres across, and its moon Dactyl.
From Nature • Sep. 10, 2014
“Welcome to Dactyl Hill,” Cymbeline had said, watching Magdalys’s look of wonder at the soaring pteros.
From "Dactyl Hill Squad" by Daniel José Older
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
