Chordates

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Organisms that fall under a biological classification defined by the presence of a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, and gill slits at some point in their life cycle
2. Life forms that are categorized by retaining a notochord and a central nerve cord, which are present at some developmental phase, and encompass various animal types
3. Animals characterized by having a notochord, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and pharyngeal slits at some stage of their lifecycle

Etymology: "Chordates" is the plural of "chordate", a noun for an animal in the phylum Chordata. The name is a Translingual scientific coinage, built from the Greek "chorde", meaning string or gut, which is the same root that gives "chord" in music. The notochord, the flexible rod that gives the group its name, runs along the back of the body in every member of the phylum at some stage of life. The word belongs to the taxonomic Latin used by naturalists to name the major divisions of the animal kingdom, so it is a modern formation rather than an ancient one, even though its building blocks are Greek. Its plural "chordates" follows ordinary English usage for a count noun ending in a consonant-plus-e, and it is simply a group label applied to everything that shares those three features.

Synonyms: vertebrates