Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having three digits on each extremity.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having three digits, whether fingers or toes; tridigitate.
- Having three digital parts or processes. Also
tridactylous .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Biol.) Having three fingers or toes, or composed of three movable parts attached to a common base.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective anatomy Having three
digits on a limb. - adjective biology Composed of three movable parts attached to a common base.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Or even tridactyl, like your emu claws, but … I counted.
Ancient, Strange, and Lovely Susan Fletcher 2010
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Your emu, by contrast, has three toes in a tridactyl arrangement.
Ancient, Strange, and Lovely Susan Fletcher 2010
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Interestingly, they used tree kangaroos as a model, and the feet of the dinosauroid are not tridactyl and clawed as usually shown in drawings, but four-toed, with nails rather than claws, and with the two medial toes smaller than the lateral ones.
Dinosauroids revisited Darren Naish 2006
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This contrasts with the dipodine jerboas Paradipus, Dipus, Stylodipus, Eremodipus and Jaculus, all of which lack lateral digits and are tridactyl.
Archive 2006-03-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Interestingly, they used tree kangaroos as a model, and the feet of the dinosauroid are not tridactyl and clawed as usually shown in drawings, but four-toed, with nails rather than claws, and with the two medial toes smaller than the lateral ones.
Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006
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A smaller coprolite Va2 unit shows a tridactyl, left foot impression of a perissodactyl.
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Both tridactyl imprints may have been produced by the coprolite-makers.
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A smaller coprolite Va2 unit shows a tridactyl, left foot impression of a perissodactyl.
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The largest, tridactyl footprint can be ascribed to a right foot of a rhinoceros.
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Desiccation is obvious in one specimen with a rather small tridactyl imprint since it presents some thin cracks or fissures.
gangerh commented on the word tridactyl
... could be counted on the fingers of Ashley's hands, and he was a tridactyl - if you didn't count his four thumbs.
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde.
September 2, 2008