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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Of, relating to, or located in the region of the sphenoid bone: a pterygoid muscle.
  2. adj. Resembling a wing; winglike.
  3. n. Either of two processes descending from the body of the sphenoid bone.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Wing-like or wing-shaped; aliform or alate: specifically applied in anatomy to certain bones or bony processes and associate parts.
  2. The external pterygoid process is a process or extension of the alisphenoid, or great, wing of the sphenoid bone, having no independent center of ossification, and never being a distinct part.
  3. The internal pterygoid process, on the other hand, is a distinct bone, the pterygoid proper, having its own center of ossification, and representing the freely articulated pterygoid bone of lower vertebrates. These processes are also distinguished as ectopterygoid and entopterygoid.
  4. The combined internal and external pterygoid processes, the two parts being distinguished as the internal and external pterygoid plates.
  5. The pyramidal process, or tuberosity of the palate.
  6. n. In zoology and anatomy: A bone of the facial part of the skull, forming a part of the hard palate, or pterygopalatal bar, commonly a horizontal rod-like bone, one of a pair on each side of the median line intervening between the palatal and the quadrate bone, or suspensorium of the mandible, and movably articulated with both, frequently also articulating with the basisphenoidal rostrum of the skull: in any mammal, detached from its posterior connection with the suspensorium, and commonly immovably sutured with the palatal and ankylosed with the sphenoid, when it forms the part known in human anatomy as the internal pterygoid process of the sphenoid. In fishes there are several different pterygoid bones, entering into the formation of the pterygopalatal bar or palatoquadrate arch, and distinguished as entopterygoid, ectopterygoid, and metapterygoid: see these words, and cut under palatoquadrate. See also cuts under desmognathous, dromæognathous, periotic, Petromyzon, Physeter, poison-fang, Python, and temporomastoid.
  7. n. A pterygoid muscle.
  8. n. plural In entomology, same as pterygoda.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Resembling a wing
  2. adj. Of or pertaining to the sphenoid bone

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Like a bird's wing in form.
  2. adj. Of, pertaining to, or in the region of, the pterygoid bones, pterygoid processes, or the whole sphenoid bone.

Etymologies

  1. Greek pterugoeidēs, winglike : pterux, pterug-, wing; see pet- in Indo-European roots + -oeidēs, -oid.

Examples

  • “P.ace N.P. at the coccyx, or near it on the spine; and then treat, by firm but momentary touches of the P. P., over the lower maxillary -- _pterygoid_ -- muscles and nerves; indeed, over the _entire_ lower jaw and its articulations.”

    A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication

  • “C. External pterygoid process lying on the levator and tensor palati muscles.”

    Surgical Anatomy

  • “Vesalius gives a good account of the sphenoid bone, with its large and small wings and its pterygoid processes; and he accurately describes the vestibule in the interior of the temporal bone.”

    Fathers of Biology

  • “Huxley to recognise what are the true homologues of the quadrate, the palatine and the pterygoid in adult bony fish, and to prove that the symplectic and the metapterygoid (tympanal, Cuvier) are bones peculiar to fish.”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “Certain of these bones he considered to be the substitutes, not the equivalents, of the palatine and pterygoid of other Vertebrates, which are formed from the upper part of the first visceral arch, a part missing in the newt (p. 100).”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “Owing to the difference of development he would not homologise these bones in the newt with the palatine and pterygoid of other Vertebrates.”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “The mandibular arch in the developing fish is abruptly angled, as in the embryo of Tetrapoda; the upper prong of it ossifies into the palatine and pterygoid; at the angle is formed the quadrate (jugal, Cuvier), and to the quadrate is articulated the lower jaw, which ossifies round the lower prong or Meckel's cartilage.”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “The actual bone of the upper jaw (maxillary) develops outside and separate from the palato-pterygoid bar.”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “Hertwig considered that the following bones were originally formed by coalescence of teeth -- parasphenoid, vomer, palatine, pterygoid, the tooth-bearing part of the pre-maxillary, the maxillary, the dentary and certain bones of the hyo-mandibular skeleton of”

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • “—Until the seventh or eighth month of fetal life the body of the sphenoid consists of two parts, viz., one in front of the tuberculum sellæ, the presphenoid, with which the small wings are continuous; the other, comprising the sella turcica and dorsum sellæ, the postsphenoid, with which are associated the great wings, and pterygoid processes.”

    II. Osteology. 5a. 5. The Sphenoid Bone

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‘pterygoid’ has been looked up 883 times, added to 5 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 16.