crinoid

Etymology

The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take it from New Latin Crinoidea, the name of the class,^[2][3][4] which is formed from Ancient Greek κρίνον (krínon, “lily”) and -οειδής (-oeidḗs, “-like”).^[2][5] The OED explains the English word as the Greek noun with the suffix -oid, after the class name, which J. S. Miller used in his “Natural History of the Crinoidea” (1821),^[6] while Hoad, the Shorter Oxford, Klein and Dictionary.com give the Greek adjective κρινοειδής (krinoeidḗs, “lily-like”) as the source.^[7][8][5][9] The Greek word for the lily is a borrowing from an unknown language,^[6][10] and it is also the source of the plant name crinum.^[6][5] The animals were named for their resemblance to a lily or tulip.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, of or relating to the echinoderms of the class Crinoidea: 1822, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the same year,^[3] while Dictionary.com dates the word to 1825–35.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The noun, a crinoid animal, a sea lily or feather star, followed in 1836, in the British Critic,^[6][3] although Etymonline dates the noun to 1847 and the adjective, in the sense "lily-shaped", to 1836.^[10] The Shorter Oxford dates the word to the mid 19th century.^[8] The animals are best known as fossils of the Paleozoic, while living species are found at great depths in the sea.^[10] Collins also records the general sense "shaped like a lily".^[11]

Timeline

• 1822 – adjective, relating to the Crinoidea.^[6][3]
• 1836 – noun, a sea lily or feather star.^[6][3] Etymonline dates the noun to 1847.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any echinoderm of the class Crinoidea, with a small cup-shaped body and long feathery arms, including the stalked sea lilies, the free-swimming feather stars and many fossil forms: The limestone was full of crinoid stems.^{[11][8][6][3]}

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the crinoids.^[11][3][6]
2. Shaped like a lily.^[11][7]

Word family

• crinoidal
• noncrinoid

Related words

• crinum
• encrinite
• -oid
• echinoderm

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins