pennibrachium

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noun

A forelimb, found on various species of extinct and extant coelurosaur, that is not used in flight or gliding but still bears long, typically pennaceous feathers which form a winglike surface.

OriginLatin penna →
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Meanings

nounpennibrachium (plural pennibrachia)

plural pennibrachia

  1. biologyA forelimb, found on various species of extinct and extant coelurosaur, that is not used in flight or gliding but still bears long, typically pennaceous feathers which form a winglike surface.

    Some dromaeosaurid, troodontid, oviraptorosaur and therizinosaur specimens show the presence of what we term a ‘pennibrachium’, a forelimb bearing long feathers that form a planar, wing-like surface but are not necessarily used in aerial locomotion.

    2010 July 7, Corwin Sullivan, “The asymmetry of the carpal joint and the evolution of wing folding in maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs”, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, volume 277, number 1690, page 2027

Origin

  1. Latinpenna“feather”
  2. Englishpennibrachium

From Latin penna (“feather”) + brachium (“arm”). Coined by Sullivan et al. in 2010.

More words from Latin

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pennibrachium. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pennibrachium

MLA

“pennibrachium.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pennibrachium. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pennibrachium,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pennibrachium.

Source: pennibrachium on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.