hyoid

adj

1. (not-comparable)Shaped like a U, or like the letter upsilon (υ).

   “This stick has a hyoid shape.”

   “The hyoid bone in her throat flutters as if discharging some subvocal rosary.”

   “Beebe referred to these never-before-seen creatures as monsters, as devils and dragons. But he though of their bodies as philosophies, traditions of thought, as schools of dragonism. A college drop-out, he wondered what was to be learned at their great university: An astronesthes with batteries of hells-eye lights on its cheeks, a looped string of twenty lavender glowing beads suspended from its hyoid dewlap.”

2. (not-comparable, relational)Of or pertaining to the hyoid bone.

noun

1. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of hyoid bone.

   “the vulture, relinquishing its title, surely in natural justice gave me a right to this femur, this curiously distorted hyoid?”

2. A curved line resembling the English uppercase letter U.