Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Cynodont
/ˈsaɪnədɒnt/noun
A member of the therapsid group that includes the ancestors of all mammals.
The Greek roots
κύων
kýōn
dog
ὀδούς
odoús
tooth
Literally: “dog tooth”
The story of the word
Richard Owen named the Cynodontia in 1861 for what their jaws were doing. Reptile teeth are a row of near-identical pegs; in these animals the row broke up into incisors, canines and cheek teeth that met and sheared, which is the mammal pattern. The canine is the dog tooth in English too, and in Greek κυνόδους meant exactly that.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1861
Same family
cyniccynosureorthodontistmastodonperiodontal
In a sentence
The Karoo beds have produced cynodonts by the thousand.
Every mammal alive is a cynodont, taxonomically speaking.