heteroclitic

adjective

1

of a word : irregular in inflection

2

of nouns in Indo-European languages : having different stem forms depending on grammatical case

especially : having a stem ending in r in the nominative and accusative cases (as in Latin femur "thigh" or Hittite wātar "water") and n in the other cases (as in feminis and witenaš, the genitive forms of femur and wātar)

Word History

Etymology

heteroclite entry 1 + -ic entry 1

First Known Use

1831, in the meaning defined at sense 1