Meanings
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1
adj
beastlike or resembling a wild animal; historical and offensive when used to demean a person
The nineteenth-century writer used theroid as a demeaning label for people he considered beastlike.
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2
adj
an obsolete spelling of thyroid
An early anatomy text used theroid where a modern edition would print thyroid.
Thesaurus
Etymology
In the beastlike sense, formed from Greek ther ("wild beast") + -oid ("resembling"). An unrelated obsolete spelling theroid also occurred for thyroid. The historical human-description sense is now chiefly encountered in discussions or quotations of discredited classifications.