In anatomy, a finger or toe; in poetry, a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (as in the word 'merrily').
From Latin 'dactylus', borrowed from Greek 'daktylos' meaning 'finger or toe', originally used in anatomy before being applied metaphorically to poetic meter.
The Romans were so struck by the resemblance between finger bones and the long-short-short pattern of syllables that they borrowed the Greek word directly, making 'dactylus' one of the most elegantly logical names in all of literary terminology.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.