n. Any of various lizards of the family Teiidae of the Americas, having a long forked tongue, a streamlined body, and large rectangular ventral scales, and including the whiptails and the racerunners. [From New Latin Teiidae, family name, from Teius, type genus, from Portuguese tejú, tegu; see TEGU.] teiid adj. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.