metazoan

/ ˌmɛtəˈzəʊən /

noun

1. any multicellular animal of the group Metazoa : includes all animals except sponges

adjective

1. of, relating to, or belonging to the Metazoa

metazoan

/ mĕt′ə-zō′ən /

1. Any of the animals belonging to the subkingdom Metazoa, having a body made up of differentiated cells arranged in tissues and organs. All multicellular animals besides sponges are metazoans.
2. A multicellular animal. No longer in scientific use.

Word History and Origins

Origin of metazoan¹

C19: from New Latin Metazoa; see meta- , -zoa

Example Sentences

Single cells would then join together, seeking the advantages of metazoan life, until before you know it something like the earthly menagerie would come to be.

From New York Times

To assess differences in protein domains across metazoan genomes, we examined protein domain expansion and contraction in each species, based on the total number of unique genes that each Pfam domain contained.

From Nature

One example, named Ming the clam, had a reported age of 507 years, which would make it the longest living non-colonial metazoan species with an authenticated lifespan ever discovered.

From Forbes

Despite the large evolutionary distances between metazoan species, they can show remarkable commonalities in their biology, and this has helped to establish fly and worm as model organisms for human biology1, 2.

From Nature

This overlap of expressional responses by gene families across phyla suggests a conserved metazoan stress response involving enhanced metabolism and the suppression of genes involved in reproduction.

From Nature