-oid - Definitions from Dictionary.com

6 results for: -oid

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

-oid

a suffix meaning “resembling,” “like,” used in the formation of adjectives and nouns (and often implying an incomplete or imperfect resemblance to what is indicated by the preceding element): alkaloid; anthropoid; cardioid; cuboid; lithoid; ovoid; planetoid.

Compare -ode¹.

[Origin: < Gk -oeidés, equiv. to -o- -o- + -eidés having the form of, deriv. of eǐdos form

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

-oid
suff.

Resembling; having the appearance of; related to: acanthoid.
One that resembles something specified or has a specified quality: humanoid.

[Greek -oeidēs, from eidos, shape, form; see weid- in Indo-European roots.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
-oid

suffix for "like, like that of," from Gk. -oeides, from eidos "form," related to idein "to see," eidenai "to know;" lit. "to see," from PIE *weid-es-, from base *weid- "to see, to know" (see vision).

The American Heritage Science Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

-oid
A suffix meaning "like" or "resembling," as in ellipsoid, a geometric solid that resembles an ellipse.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source - Share This

-oid jargon
(from "android") A suffix used as in mainstream English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily use it with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wouldn't keep company with it in mainstream English. For example, "He's a nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't make the grade; a "modemoid" might be a 300-baud modem (Real Modems run at 144000 or up); a "computeroid" might be any bitty box.
"-oid" can also mean "resembling an android", which was once confined to science-fiction fans and hackers. It too has recently (in 1991) started to go mainstream (most notably in the term "trendoid" for victims of terminal hipness). This is probably traceable to the popularisation of the term droid in "Star Wars" and its sequels.
Coinages in both forms have been common in science fiction for at least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have probably been making "-oid" jargon for almost that long (though GLS and ESR can personally confirm only that they were already common in the mid-1970s).
[The Jargon File]
(1999-07-10)

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

-oid

Ech`i*noi"de*a\, n. pl. [NL. See Echinus, and -oid.] (Zo["o]l.) The class Echinodermata which includes the sea urchins. They have a calcareous, usually more or less spheroidal or disk-shaped, composed of many united plates, and covered with movable spines. See Spatangoid, Clypeastroid. [Written also Echinidea, and Echinoida.]

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