# dactylus
## English
### Noun

dactylus (plural dactyli)
* Synonym of dactyl (“type of metrical foot”)
* (marine biology) The tip of a cephalopod's tentacle club
** 1982 April, Clyde F.E. Roper, Kenneth J. Boss, “The Giant Squid”, in Scientific American, volume 246, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 96–105:The distal end of the club, the dactylus (finger), is pointed and attenuated but is covered with hundreds of small suckers.
** 2001 June, N. Neethiselvan, “A new species of cuttlefish Sepia ramani sp. nov. (Class: Cephalopoda) from Tuticorin Bay, southeast coast of India”, in Indian Journal of Marine Sciences, volume 30, number 2, pages 81–86:[…] suckers of carpus and dactylus portions small […]
* (carcinology) The tip of a crustacean's leg
** 1975 November, Takahiro Fujino, “Fine features of the dactylus of the ambulatory pereiopods in a bivalve-associated shrimp, Anschistus miersi (De Man), under the scanning electron microscope (Decapoda, Natantia, Pontoniinae)”, in Crustaceana, volume 29, number 3, →DOI, pages 252–254:The tip of the dactylus is short and hooked, with a scoop-shaped depression on the anterior surface.
** 2001 April, Charles Oliver Coleman, Ines Jäger, “Acanthonotozomella rauscherti (Amphipoda, Acanthonotozomellidae), a new species from the Antarctic Ocean”, in Journal of Crustacean Biology, volume 21, number 2, →DOI, pages 475–483:Pereiopod 1 […] dactylus with 3 pointed processes on posterior margin (Fig. 2g).

## Dutch
### Alternative forms

* daktylus (superseded)

### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dactylus, from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈdɑk.ti.lʏs/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: dac‧ty‧lus

### Noun

dactylus m (plural dactyli or dactylen)
* (poetry) dactyl

#### Derived terms

* dactylisch

## Latin
### Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “a finger, a dactyl”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈdak.ty.lus/, [ˈd̪äkt̪ʏɫ̪ʊs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈdak.ti.lus/, [ˈd̪äkt̪ilus]

### Noun

dactylus m (genitive dactylī); second declension
* a sort of muscle
* a kind of grape
* a sort of grass
* a precious stone
* the date
* (poetry) a dactyl (¯ ˘ ˘), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; this came to be in an allusion to the three joints of the finger

#### Declension

Second-declension noun.

#### Synonyms

* (kind of grape): dactylis

#### Descendants

* → Basque: datil
* Catalan: dàtil
* → Czech: datle
* → Danish: daddel
* → Dutch: dadel
* → English: date, dactyl
* → Finnish: taateli, daktyyli
* French: datte, → dactyle
* → German: Dattel
* → Hungarian: datolya
* → Icelandic: daðla
* → Irish: dáta
* Italian: dattero, dattilo
* → Latvian: datele
* → Norwegian: daddel
* → Polish: daktyl
* Romansch: datla
* → Scottish Gaelic: deit
* → Slovene: datelj
* Spanish: dátil, → dáctilo
* → Swedish: dadel
* → Translingual: Dactylis

### Adjective

dactylus (feminine dactyla, neuter dactylum); first/second-declension adjective
* (New Latin) finger-like; fingered.

#### Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

#### Descendants

* Translingual: Grapholita dactyla, Lepanthes dactyla, Porroglossum dactylum

### References

* “dactylus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “dactylus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* dactylus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* “dactylus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
* “dactylus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin