a. Zool. [ad. mod.L. villiform-is: see VILLUS and -FORM. So F. villiforme.] Of the teeth of certain fishes: Having the form of villi; so numerous, slender and closely set, as to resemble the pile of velvet.
Also Bot., ‘resembling villi.’
1849–52. Owen, in Todd’s Cycl. Anat., IV. 874/1. The teeth of the Sheat-fish … present all the gradations between the villiform and raduliform types.
1859. Murchison, Siluria (ed. 3), App. 562. The minute villiform teeth of osseous fishes.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 126. Very fine conical teeth arranged in a band are termed villiform teeth.
