vestigial

1. 1.

   not fully developed in mature animals

   “rudimentary wings”

   Synonymsrudimentary

   Similarundeveloped

   biology

Questions about vestigial

What does vestigial mean?

vestigial means "not fully developed in mature animals".

How many syllables are in vestigial?

vestigial has 4 syllables: ve-stig-i-al. The stress falls on "stig". In IPA it is /vəˈstɪdʒiəl/.

What is another word for vestigial?

Close synonyms include rudimentary. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is vestigial a common word?

vestigial is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.