-oid

Resembling; having the likeness of (usually including the concept of not being the same despite the likeness, but counterexamples exist).

Suffix

  1. Resembling; having the likeness of (usually including the concept of not being the same despite the likeness, but counterexamples exist).
    • human + -oid → humanoid
    • sterol + -oid → steroid
    • ellipse + -oid → ellipsoid
  2. Of, pertaining to, or related to.
    • lympho- + -oid → lymphoid
    • myelo- + -oid → myeloid
    • aster- + -oid → asteroid
  3. Added to nouns to create derogatory terms, typically referring to a particular ideology or group of people.
    • waste + -oid → wastoid
    • west + -oid → westoid
    • left + -oid → leftoid
  4. Added typically to the name of an algebraic structure, to denote the horizontal categorification of that structure.
    • group + -oid → groupoid
    • ring + -oid → ringoid
    • Lie algebra + -oid → Lie algebroid

Origin

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”).

Synonyms

quasi- para- -form -iform -esque -ish -ly -some -y -ass -like