Dovey’s Interesting Word or Phrase of the Day: styloid

This is a series of posts on interesting and unusual words and phrases.

The first set of words are adjectives that describe a shape and are often used in botany, mineralogy, and describing artistic forms.

The word for today is styloid: shaped like a style or pen, from the Greek.

The styloid process is a cylindrical, slender, needle-like projection of varying lengths averaging 2 to 3 cm. The styloid process projects from the inferior part of the petrous temporal bone and offers attachment to the stylohyoid ligament and the stylohyoid, stylopharyngeus, and styloglossus muscles.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31082019/#:~:text=The%20styloid%20process%20is%20a,%2C%20stylopharyngeus%2C%20and%20styloglossus%20muscles.