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Glite Dictionary
🧬 Related to chordates 🐟 An animal group
chordate

chordate

1 9.7
Relating to animals that have a support rod in their back, such as animals with backbones
  • adjective
  • /ˈkɔrdɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : cordado
  • I say in most chordate groups, brain size increases in evolution, but in a few groups it decreases.

Examples

  • Many researchers study chordate animals to understand the evolution of vertebrates.

  • The zooplankton include chordate jellyfishes known as "salps," which are among the fastest-growing multicellular organisms on the planet.

    Academic text (2003)

  • However, when you take chordate morphology, you expect—as I did—to have a discussion of evolution, a demonstration of known missing links, etc.

    Blog text (23)

  • The characteristics of chordate species, like having a backbone, are fascinating to biologists.

  • In biology class, we learned that a chordate has a notochord at some point in its life cycle.

Surface Forms

chordate positive

Morphology

chordate = chord (opaque) = chord + ate

The connection to 'chord' is not transparent as it refers to a notochord, a biological structure, rather than a geometric line segment.

Etymology

The adjective chordate comes from the Greek root chord- meaning 'cord', and is like the English word cord, pointing to animals that have a 'back cord' at some stage. That's why we call fish, birds, and mammals chordate when we mean 'of or relating to' animals with that back cord.