-oid
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-oid
- /-ɔɪ̯d/ Canada, US, UK
- /-oɪ̯d/ Australia, New Zealand
- /-ɔ(ː)jɖ/ India
Where it comes from
Learned borrowing from Latin -oīdēs, from Ancient Greek -ο-ειδής (-o-eidḗs) (the ο being the last vowel of the stem to which the suffix is attached); from εἶδος (eîdos, “form, likeness”).
The sense for derogatorily naming groups of people comes from a (originally satirical) reapplication from the usage of the suffix in phrenological and early anthropological terminology (e.g., Mongoloid, Caucasoid, etc.). While often viewed as offensive today, these ethnic terms were not meant to be derogatory inside these fields themselves, but were rather reapplications of the usage found in other scientific settings.
suffix
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Resembling; having the likeness of (usually including the concept of not being the same despite the likeness, but counterexamples exist).
human + -oid → humanoid
Similar: quasi-, para-, -form, -iform, -esque, -ish, -ly, -some, -y, -ass, -like
- Of, pertaining to, or related to. lympho- + -oid → lymphoid
- Added to nouns to create derogatory terms, typically referring to a particular ideology or group of people. waste + -oid → wastoid
- Added typically to the name of an algebraic structure, to denote the horizontal categorification of that structure. group + -oid → groupoid
Translations
Talk about this word "-oid." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/-oid. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. -oid. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/-oid "-oid." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/-oid.Cite this
@misc{oid_2026,
title = {-oid},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/-oid},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
