pectinal

English

Etymology

Latin pecten (“comb”). See pectinate.

Adjective

pectinal (comparative more pectinal, superlative most pectinal)

Of or relating to a comb; resembling a comb.

Noun

pectinal (plural pectinals)

A fish whose bones resemble the teeth of a comb.
- 1650, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica:
  Now although Galen in this place makes instance but in one, yet there are other fishes, whose eies regard the heavens, as Plane, and cartilagineous fishes, as pectinals, or such as have their bones made laterally like a comb; for when they apply themselves to sleep or rest upon the white side, their eies on the other side look upward toward heaven.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for pectinal in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

ice plant, ice-plant, iceplant, planetic

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