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Carlo Beenakker
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The suffix "-oid" means the same as "quasi", so "resembling", "like". A groupoid is a quasi-group, like a group. There are hundreds of words in that category, covering many scientific disciplines.

In the "early use of mathematical words" database I find:

250 BC: conchoid
200 BC: cissoid
400: trapezoid
1650: trochoid
1672: ellipsoid
1685: cochleoid
1830: epicycloid
1836: paraboloid
1837: strophoid
1844: centroid
1872: geoid, gyroid
1878: nephroid
1879: deltoid
1881: prismatoid
1891: cuboid
1925: groupoid
1935: matroid

The Woid on-Oid by William Safire comments on the proliferation of -oids:

We all know that the use of -oid to create a noun has been growing by leapoids and bounds. Among the earliest were android, or "automaton in human form," created in 1727, and asteroid, "small body like a star," in 1802. Scientists and mathematicians were especially attracted to the ending, juggling their cylindroids, globoids and spheroids.

Carlo Beenakker
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