morphologist

American  

[mawr-fahl-uh-jist] / mɔrˈfɑl ə dʒɪst /

noun

plural

morphologists

1. a specialist in morphology.

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Explanation

A morphologist is a person who studies the shape and structure of either living things or words, depending on their field of study. Morphologists study form and structure. In biology, they explore how the shapes of organisms adapt to environments, such as variations in fish fins. In linguistics, they analyze word structures, understanding how different parts form meanings. For instance, a linguistic morphologist would know that the word "morphologist" comes from the Greek word morphē, which means "form," and the suffix -logist, meaning "one who studies."

Example Sentences

Yet how tongues came about “is one of the biggest mysteries in our evolutionary history,” says Sam Van Wassenbergh, a functional morphologist at the University of Antwerp.

From Science Magazine • May 24, 2023

“It’s very confusing why they lost their tail,” said Gabrielle Russo, an evolutionary morphologist at Stony Brook University in New York who was not involved in the study.

From New York Times • Sep. 21, 2021

“It’s an extraordinary behavioral adaptation,” says David Cundall, a functional morphologist at Lehigh University, who was not involved in the research.

From Scientific American • Jan. 11, 2021

Plant morphologist and lead author Dan Chitwood also presented the study at the Botany 2017 meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, on 27 June.

From Nature • Jul. 6, 2017

But it is significant that it was a morphologist and not a physiologist that did the first spade-work.

From Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology by E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell