metazoan

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Translingual Metazoa

Proto-Indo-European *-nós

Proto-Italic *-nosder.

Proto-Italic *-ānos

Latin -ānus

Old French -ainder.

Middle English -an

English -an

English metazoan

From Translingual Metazoa + English -an.

Noun

metazoan (plural metazoa or metazoans)

1. (zoology) Any animal that is multicellular.

   Hypernyms: animal < eukaryote < organism

   Coordinate terms: protozoan (eukaryotic, usually unicellular); prokaryote (noneukaryotic, unicellular)

2. (zoology, obsolete) Any animal that undergoes development from an embryo stage with two or three tissue layers, namely the ectoderm, endoderm, and sometimes mesoderm.

Derived terms

• micrometazoan
• nonmetazoan
• premetazoan
• urmetazoan

Related terms

• eumetazoan
• Metazoa
• metazoal (adjective)
• parazoan

Translations

(zoology) animals with differentiated tissues

• Finnish: monisoluinen eläin
• French: métazoaire (fr) m
• Polish: wielokomórkowiec (pl) m
• Spanish: metazoo m

Adjective

metazoan (not comparable)

1. Having to do with animals that are multicellular.
2. Having to do with animals that develop from an embryo with three tissue layers.

Synonyms

• metazoic

Related terms

• parazoan

Translations

(zoology) relating to metazoa

• Finnish: monisoluinen (fi)
• French: métazoaire (fr) m or f
• Polish: wielokomórkowy (pl)