[1850–55; ‹ Gk ornīthikós birdlike, equiv. to ornīth-ornith- + -ikos-ic]This word is first recorded in the period 1850–55. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: boneyard, ethos, ethylene, headhunting, muggins-ic is a suffix forming adjectives from other parts of speech, occurring originally inGreek and Latin loanwords (metallic; poetic; archaic; public) and, on this model, used as an adjective-forming suffix with the particular senses“having some characteristics of” (opposed to the simple attributive use of the basenoun) (balletic; sophomoric); “in the style of” (Byronic; Miltonic); “pertaining to a family of peoples or languages” (Finnic; Semitic; Turkic)