Dictionary

dactyl en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈdæktɪl/ (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin dactylus, from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “finger”), from the three bones of the finger corresponding to three syllables. Doublet of dactylus, date, and (possibly) digit.

Meanings

1. A metrical foot of three syllables of the shape | – ⏖ |
   • —My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 4:
   • Now the Bard, glad to get an audience, […] / stuck fast with his first hexameter, / Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. // But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd / Into recitative, in great dismay / Both cherubim and seraphim were heard / To murmur loudly through their long array; […] 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanzas XC–XCI, page 33:
2. A metrical foot of three syllables of the shape | – ⏖ |: ▸ In qualitative metre, a foot with a stressed first syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
3. A metrical foot of three syllables of the shape | – ⏖ |: ▸ In quantitative metre, a foot with a long first syllable followed by two short syllables.
4. (qualifier:transferred sense) A metrical foot of three syllables of the shape | – ⏖ |: ▸ An excerpt of poetry or verse using this metre.

Forms

Deriveds

cephalopolysyndactyly · dactylous · dactylar · dactylist · double dactyl · adactylous · leptodactylous · hexadactylism · paradactylum

Relateds

dactylic · polydactyl

Translations (22)

ca dàctil (poetical foot of three syllables) · fo rættur tríliður (poetical foot of three syllables) · ja ダクティル (poetical foot of three syllables) · ru да́ктиль (poetical foot of three syllables) · it dattilo (poetical foot of three syllables) · eo daktilo (poetical foot of three syllables) · de Daktylus (poetical foot of three syllables) · es dáctilo (poetical foot of three syllables) · oc dactil (poetical foot of three syllables) · grc δάκτυλος (poetical foot of three syllables) · uk да́ктиль (poetical foot of three syllables) · pl daktyl (poetical foot of three syllables) · ga dachtal class m1 (poetical foot of three syllables) · fr dactyle (poetical foot of three syllables) · sv daktyl (poetical foot of three syllables) · da daktyl (poetical foot of three syllables) · la dactylus (poetical foot of three syllables) · el δάκτυλος (poetical foot of three syllables) · hy ստեղն (poetical foot of three syllables) · fi daktyyli (poetical foot of three syllables) · pt dátilo (poetical foot of three syllables) · nl dactylus (poetical foot of three syllables)