·noun A finger or toe; a digit.
II. Dactyl ·noun The claw or terminal joint of a leg of an insect or crustacean.
III. Dactyl ·noun A poetical foot of three sylables (-- Dactyl Dactyl), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; as, ·Lat. tegm(n/), ·Eng. merciful;
- so called from the similarity of its arrangement to that of the joints of a finger.