Meristics

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The study of countable repeated structures, such as fin rays or scales, used to classify and identify organisms
2. The counting of serially repeated anatomical features, like vertebrae or fin spines, to help distinguish species
3. Measurable, countable traits of organisms, such as the number of scales or segments, used in taxonomy

Etymology: Meristics is the study of how things divide into parts, and its name is built from a Greek word that simply meant "part." The Greek "méros" gave rise to "meristēs," a divider or one who apportions, and the suffix "-ics" turns that into a field of study, much as "physics" or "mathematics" name bodies of knowledge. The word is therefore a modern coinage assembled from classical pieces rather than something the ancient Greeks would have recognised as a discipline. The sense of "meristic" is worth noticing because the root is so plain: the Greek original describes nothing more than division into portions. In biology the related adjective describes countable repeated parts, such as the segments of an earthworm or the vertebrae of a spine, so the field collects the idea of counting divisions in an organism.