Zygodactyl

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any bird with toes of this kind, such as the parrot.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having two toes pointing forward, and two pointing backward; zygodactylous. not-comparable

    "In parrots, the tarsometatarsus has a distinct shape resulting from the particular arrangement of parrot toes. As zygodactyl birds, toes number 2 and 3 are facing forward, while toes 1 and 4 are facing backwards."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (of bird feet) having the first and fourth toes directed backward the second and third forward wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
zygodactylouszygodactylous

Example

More examples

"In parrots, the tarsometatarsus has a distinct shape resulting from the particular arrangement of parrot toes. As zygodactyl birds, toes number 2 and 3 are facing forward, while toes 1 and 4 are facing backwards."

Etymology

From zygo- + -dactyl.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.