‖ trochus
(ˈtrəʊkəs, ˈtrɒkəs)
Pl. trochi (-kaɪ), also trochuses.
[L., a. Gr. τροχός, f. τρέχειν to run.]
1. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. A wheel or hoop, used in athletic exercises or as a plaything.
| 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Trochus, a Wheel, a Top for Children to play with. 1734 tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. (1768) I. Pref. 88 The exercises of leaping, throwing the dart, and that of the trochus or wheel. 1847 J. Leitch tr. C. O. Müller's Anc. Art §351. (1850) 427 Ganymede with trochus. |
† 2. = troche2.
Obs. rare—1.
| 1748 tr. Vegetius' Distemp. Horses 85 Three Trochus's or Cakes of Sinoper. |
3. Zool. a. A genus of gastropod molluscs, having a top-shaped or conical shell; the type of the family
Trochidæ or top-shells.
| 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Trochus,..a genus of shells. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VII. 33 The trunk of the Trochus is fleshy, muscular, supple, and hollow. 1851 Woodward Mollusca (1856) 12 The trochi and purpuræ are found at low-water, amongst the sea-weed. 1859 H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn xxxiv. (1894) 325 They fell to gathering shells... Trochuses, as big as one's fist. |
| attrib. and Comb. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. IV. 22 Snails of the trochus kind. 1889 Science-Gossip XXV. 168 Trochus-shaped rotulites. |
b. The internal ring of cilia in the trochal organ of a rotifer.
| 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 632 The trochal apparatus..appears to consist typically of an internal præoral ring of long cilia, the trochus, and an external ring of finer cilia, the cingulum. |