Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for monophyletic. Search instead for monophylety.

monophyletic

American  
[mon-oh-fahy-let-ik] / ˌmɒn oʊ faɪˈlɛt ɪk /

adjective

  1. Biology. consisting of organisms descended from a single taxon.

monophyletic British  
/ ˌmɒnəʊfaɪˈlɛtɪk /

adjective

  1. relating to or characterized by descent from a single ancestral group of animals or plants

  2. (of animals or plants) of or belonging to a single stock

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
monophyletic Scientific  
/ mŏn′ō-fī-lĕt′ĭk /

  1. Relating to a taxonomic group that contains all the descendants of a single common ancestor. All clades, such as birds and placental mammals, are monophyletic.

  2. Compare paraphyletic polyphyletic

Other Word Forms

  • monophyletism noun
  • monophylety noun

Etymology

Origin of monophyletic

First recorded in 1870–75; mono- + phyletic

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.