haltere
Plural: halteres
Noun
- Small, club-shaped balancing organs on the hindwings of some insects.
- either of the rudimentary hind wings of dipterous insects; used for maintaining equilibrium during flight
- A small knobbed structure in some two-winged insects, one of a pair that are flapped rapidly and function as accelerometers to maintain stability in flight.
Examples
- She found a tricky spot for HALTERE, demonstrating an impressive entomological vocabulary for Scrabble.
Origin / Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἁλτῆρες (haltêres, “weights held in the hand to give an impetus in leaping”). Note that in the original Greek, there seems to have been no singular for ἁλτῆρες (haltêres), and some authorities maintain that halteres is a plurale tantum, but in English entomological usage, haltere sometimes appears as a back-formation. Sometimes the singular halter is used instead, but this may lead to confusion with other, unrelated meanings of halter.
Scrabble Score: 10
haltere: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordhaltere: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
haltere: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 10
haltere: valid Words With Friends Word