Polymerous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Consisting of numerous parts or segments ; possessing many members within a biological or chemical grouping
2. Made up of many separate sections ; describing a structure or organism with a large number of repeated units
3. Having a great many components ; applied to plants or animals with many similar parts, or to molecules built from many repeating units

Etymology: "Polymerous" is a plain technical formation: it takes "polymer" and adds the English adjective-forming suffix "-ous". The suffix itself has a long pedigree, passing from Latin "-osus" through Old French and into Middle English, where it became a standard way to turn nouns into adjectives meaning "full of" or "having the quality of." The noun it builds on, "polymer," is the more interesting piece. It joins the Greek "polys," meaning "many," with "meros," meaning "part." The second element is the one that matters here: a polymer is a substance made of many repeated units, and "polymerous" describes things composed of many such parts. The Greek roots are ancient, but the combined word belongs to modern scientific English, coined from classical building blocks rather than handed down from antiquity.