hyoid

Borrowing from French hyoïde, from New Latin hȳoīdēs, from Ancient Greek ῡ̔οειδής (hūoeidḗs, “shaped like the letter "υ"”), from ὖ (û, “the Greek letter upsilon”) +‎ -ο- (-o-) +‎ -ειδής (-eidḗs, “-like, -oid”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈhaɪ.ɔɪd/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -aɪɔɪd

hyoid (not comparable)

1. Shaped like a U, or like the letter upsilon (υ).

   This stick has a hyoid shape.

   Synonym: U-shaped

   • 1969, JG Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition:

     The hyoid bone in her throat flutters as if discharging some subvocal rosary.

   • 2023, Brad Fox, The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths:

     Beebe referred to these never-before-seen creatures as monsters, as devils and dragons. But he though of their bodies as philosophies, traditions of thought, as schools of dragonism. A college drop-out, he wondered what was to be learned at their great university: An astronesthes with batteries of hells-eye lights on its cheeks, a looped string of twenty lavender glowing beads suspended from its hyoid dewlap.

2. (anatomy, zootomy, relational) Of or pertaining to the hyoid bone.

   Synonyms: hyoidal, hyoideal, hyoidean

• hyoideal
• hyoidean

hyoid (plural hyoids)

1. (anatomy) Ellipsis of hyoid bone.
   • 1973, Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise:

     the vulture, relinquishing its title, surely in natural justice gave me a right to this femur, this curiously distorted hyoid?

• hyoidal

• “hyoid”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “hyoid”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.