The building blocks of English

Affixes

clino-

Rarely klino-.

Inclined; monoclinic.

Greek klinein, to slope.

The first sense appears in clinometer, a device for measuring the angle of a slope; clinostat (also klinostat), a device to rotate a growing plant during an experiment to cancel out the effects of gravity; and clinodactyly, a congenital inward bending of a finger.

The form is used to indicate that a mineral forms monoclinic crystals (see the previous entry). Some examples: clinopyroxene, a general term for the monoclinic minerals of the pyroxene group; clinozoisite, hydrous calcium aluminum silicate, a variety of epidote; clinochlore, a hexagonal variety of chlorite.