Echiurid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of marine organism known for its elongated, burrowing body shape and often lives in sandy substrates
2. A category of marine animals characterized by a slender, worm-like appearance and dwelling within ocean floors
3. A group of burrowing sea creatures distinguished by their soft bodies and habitat in seafloor sediments

Etymology: Echiurid is a plain technical coinage, built in the way zoologists name animal families: a genus name plus the suffix "-id", which marks a biological family. The genus is Echiura, from Greek roots that mean roughly "snake tail" ("echis" for viper or snake, and "oura" for tail), a fitting name for worms whose bodies are soft, unsegmented and often ended in a slender, forked or spoon-shaped proboscis. The suffix "-id" comes from the Greek "-ides," meaning "descendant of" or "son of," and it was adopted in zoological naming to mark a family, so the word simply refers to members of the Echiura group. Because the name was coined from classical roots for a modern scientific classification, the ancient Greeks had no word for these creatures.

Synonyms: spoon worm, echiura