Dryopithecus
Americannoun
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an extinct genus of generalized hominoids that lived in Europe and Africa during the Miocene Epoch and whose members are characterized by small molars and incisors.
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one of the four subgenera of this genus, limited to Europe.
Etymology
Origin of Dryopithecus
< New Latin (1856) < Greek drŷ ( s ) tree, oak + -o- -o- + píthēkos monkey
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Most anthropologists believe man descended from a generalized type of Dryopithecus.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the Dryopithecus, the cusps had already expanded so that they met over the grooves, causing "tunnels," which are the potent causes of tooth decay in modern man.
From Time Magazine Archive
Simons is heading for Egypt in search of fossils that could enable him to trace man's roots back beyond Dryopithecus.
From Time Magazine Archive
One molar which he was able to examine closely showed close affinities to Dryopithecus, a well-known genus of extinct apes.
From Time Magazine Archive
The ancestral chimpanzee-gorilla-man stock appears to be represented by the Upper Miocene genera Sivapithecus and Dryopithecus, the former more closely allied to, or directly ancestral to, the Hominidæ, the latter to the chimpanzee and gorilla.
From Man, Past and Present by Haddon, Alfred Court
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.
