Dactyl1. (n.) A poetical foot of three syllables (-- ~ ~), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; as, L. tegm/n/, E. merciful; -- so called from the similarity of its arrangement to that of the joints of a finger.
2. (n.) A finger or toe; a digit.
3. (n.) The claw or terminal joint of a leg of an insect or crustacean.
Thesaurus Entries
Alexandrine, accent, accentuation, amphibrach, amphimacer, anacrusis, anapest, antispast, arsis, bacchius, beat, cadence, caesura, catalexis, chloriamb, chloriambus, colon, counterpoint, cretic, dactylic hexameter, diaeresis, dimeter, dipody, dochmiac, elegiac, elegiac couplet, elegiac pentameter, emphasis, epitrite, feminine caesura, foot, heptameter, heptapody, heroic couplet, hexameter, hexapody, iamb, iambic, iambic pentameter, ictus, ionic, jingle, lilt, masculine caesura, measure, meter, metrical accent, metrical foot, metrical group, metrical unit, metron, molossus, mora, movement, numbers, paeon, pentameter, pentapody, period, proceleusmatic, pyrrhic, quantity, rhythm, spondee, sprung rhythm, stress, swing, syzygy, tetrameter, tetrapody, tetraseme, thesis, tribrach, trimeter, tripody, triseme, trochee