Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Chondrichthyes
/kɑnˈdrɪkθiˌiz/noun
The class of fishes whose skeletons are cartilage rather than bone, including sharks, rays and chimaeras.
The Greek roots
χόνδρος
khóndros
cartilage, grain
ἰχθύς
ikhthús
fish
Literally: “cartilage fishes”
The story of the word
Thomas Henry Huxley set up the name in 1880 to separate these fishes from the bony Osteichthyes. χόνδρος first meant a grain or lump, then the gristle at the front of the ribs, which is how hypochondria got its name: the region under that cartilage was thought to be the seat of melancholy. ἰχθύς is the fish of the early Christian acrostic, the letters standing for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1880
Same family
chondrocytehypochondriaichthyologyosteichthyan
In a sentence
Sharks belong to the Chondrichthyes, so they leave teeth in the fossil record but almost no skeleton.