Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to the hyoid bone.
  • noun The hyoid bone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having the form of the Greek letter upsilon, υ.
  • noun The tongue-bone or os linguæ); the hyoidean bone or collection of bones: so called from its shape in man.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The hyoid bone.
  • adjective Having the form of an arch, or of the Greek letter upsilon [Υ].
  • adjective (Anat.) Of or pertaining to the bony or cartilaginous arch which supports the tongue. Sometimes applied to the tongue itself.
  • adjective (Anat.) the arch of cartilaginous or bony segments, which connects the base of the tongue with either side of the skull.
  • adjective (Anat.) the bone in the base of the tongue, the middle part of the hyoid arch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Shaped like a U, or like the letter upsilon; specifically, designating a bone or group of bones supporting the tongue.
  • noun The hyoid bone.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to the hyoid bone
  • noun a U-shaped bone at the base of the tongue that supports the tongue muscles

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin hȳoīdēs, the hyoid bone, from Greek hūoeidēs, shaped like the letter upsilon : , upsilon + -oeidēs, -oid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French hyoïde, from modern Latin hyoides, from Ancient Greek ὑοειδής (huoeidēs, "shaped like the letter υ").

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Examples

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  • "...yet this is no more a source of confusion for the seaman than the ruminant's multiplicity of stomachs for the anatomist, or the howler's anomalous hyoid."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 215

    February 23, 2008

  • "...These bones, which support the tongue, all have cut marks, apparently inflicted by humans who feasted on the mammoth tongues. But why only the hyoid bones?"

    —Richard Stone, Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant, (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2001), 7

    September 20, 2008