osteichthyanadj.n.
/ˌɒstɪˈɪkθɪən/, U.S. /ˌɑstiˈɪkθiən/ A. adj.
Of, relating to, or designating the bony fishes (class Osteichthyes); characteristic of fishes of this class.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > fish > class Osteichthyes or Teleostomi > [adjective]
teleostomous1866
teleostomate1891
teleostomatous1893
osteichthyan1915
1915 Science 21 May 764/1 In comparing the skull patterns of the oldest Osteichthyan fishes..sutures came to be regarded as loci of movement or progressive overgrowth.
1966 A. J. Marshall Parker & Haswell's Text-bk. Zool. (ed. 7) II. 282 While only very few osteichthyian fragments of dubious early Devonian age have been discovered, great numbers of diverse species had appeared by the mid-Devonian.
1999 Nature 18 Feb. 564/3 The shoulder girdle doesn't even look osteichthyan; a large spine sweeps outwards just in front of the pectoral fin, much as in an extinct group of fishes called placoderms.
B. n.
An osteichthyan fish.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > fish > class Osteichthyes or Teleostomi > [noun] > member of
bony fish1673
teleostome1866
osteichthyan1967
1967 Jrnl. Linn. Soc.: Zool. 47 194 There is no evidence in the osteichthyans of a sclerocoel that divides the sclerotome into cranial and caudal halves.
1974 D. Webster & M. Webster Compar. Vertebr. Morphol. viii. 161 Living sarcopterygians, however, have much thinner scales resembling the cycloid scales of most living osteichthyeans.
1997 G. S. Helfman et al. Diversity of Fishes xi. 158/2 By mid-Devonian, two distinct lineages of osteichthyans had developed, the classes Sarcopterygii (fleshy or lobe fins) and Actinopterygii (ray fins).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
adj.n.1915