| 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. |
| Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. |
| -oid
suff.
[Greek -oeidēs, from eidos, shape, form; see weid- in Indo-European roots.] |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
-oid
| Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper |
| -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. |
-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)
| The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe |
-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.]| Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. |
| -noia -nomy -nt -o -o- -oate -ock -ode -odon -odont -odontia | -odus -odynia -off -oholic -oic -oid -oidea -ol -ola -ole -ology | -oma -omas -omata -ome -on -one -onic -onium -ont -onym -onymy |
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web
Perform a new search, or try your search for "-oid" at:
- Amazon.com - Shop for books, music and more
- Reference.com - Encyclopedia Search
- Reference.com - Web Search powered by Google
- Thesaurus.com - Search for synonyms and antonyms
] 













