loph

English

Borrowed from Ancient Greek λόφος (lóphos, “crest”); compare lopho-, lophid.

loph (plural lophs)

(zoology, dentistry) A ridge of enamel connecting the cusps of a molar or cheek tooth.
- 1937, Cleveland Sylvester Simkins, History of the Human Teeth: An Introduction to Comparative Dental Anatomy‎^[1], page 177:
  The plates are closely cemented together and in the early tooth they extend above the surface in a series of lophs. Because there are many of them that make up the whole molar, the tooth is called a polylophodont.
- 2005, Louise Emmons, “A revision of the genera of arboreal echimyidae”, in James L. Patton, Eileen A. Lacey, Philip Myers, editors, Mammalian Diversification: From Chromosomes to Phylogeography‎^[2], page 252:
  I include only 15 cheektooth features, although one could define a great many more in a loph-by-loph analysis.