vestigial

adjective

ves·​ti·​gial ve-ˈsti-jē-əl 

-jəl

1

of a body part or organ : remaining in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function : being or having the form of a vestige (see vestige sense 2)

a vestigial tail

Kiwis lack an external tail, and their vestigial wings are entirely hidden beneath a curious plumage—shaggy, more like fur than feathers …

—Stephen Jay Gould

2

: remaining as the last small part of something that existed before

It's held in the Gold Room, a vestigial ballroom of the kind that every downtown hotel uses for banquets and conventions.

—William Zinsser

Later colonial laws … prohibited even speaking the Pequot language, now long dead but for a few vestigial words.

—Kirk Johnson

vestigially

ve-ˈsti-jē-ə-lē 

-jə-lē

adverb

Examples of vestigial in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The idea feels like a funny vestigial trace of a pre-pandemic world—Are watercooler topics still a thing? —Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 21 May 2025

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy deployed his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to resolve a vestigial colonial dispute in Southeast Asia. —Timothy Naftali, Foreign Affairs, 2 May 2025

Vuzix is primarily a white-label and enterprise-focused wearable display company with only a vestigial eye on consumers. —PC Magazine, 11 Apr. 2025

Suddenly, restaurateurs across the region were making impossible calculations to account for the rapid declines in customer traffic, rejected insurance claims, and bottlenecked relief funds while also dealing with vestigial exhaustion from the COVID lockdowns. —Hanna Raskin, Southern Living, 20 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Latin vestigium + English -al entry 1

First Known Use

1843, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Medical Definition

vestigial

adjective

ves·​tig·​ial ve-ˈstij-(ē-)əl 

: of, relating to, or being a vestige

a vestigial structure

vestigially

-ē 

adverb