ganoid
Americanadjective
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of or relating to the Ganoidei, a group of mostly extinct fishes characterized by hard, bony scales, the living species of which include the paddlefishes, sturgeons, and gars.
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(of the scale of a fish) having a smooth, shiny surface of ganoin or a similar substance.
noun
adjective
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(of the scales of certain fishes) consisting of an inner bony layer and an outer layer of an enamel-like substance (ganoin)
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denoting fishes, including the sturgeon and bowfin, having such scales
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ganoid
1830–40; < French ganoïde < Greek gán ( os ) brightness + -oïde -oid
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.
A few thousand feet, more or less, of limestone were the liveliest amusement to the ganoid, but they buried the uniformitarian alive, under the weight of his own uniformity.
From The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
The only modification which it occurs to me to suggest in this general view of the Phylogeny of the Vertebrata is, that the "Protamphirhine" was possibly more ganoid than shark-like.
From Critiques and Addresses by Thomas Henry Huxley
The Asterolepis was a ganoid fish of gigantic dimensions.
From The Student's Elements of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
Instead of rudimentary trilobites, I noticed remains of a more perfect order of beings, amongst others ganoid fishes and some of those sauroids in which palaeontologists have discovered the earliest reptile forms.
From A Journey to the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne
On this, as on other occasions, I was struck by the complex and very various forms assumed by the ganoid scales of the Wealden.
From The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland by W. S. (William Samuel) Symonds
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
