Etymology

paraphyletic

P3A1R1A1P3H4Y4L1E1T1I1C3

Today it means: Of a defined group of taxa: not including all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of all members. Full definition →

Ancient Greek φῦλον
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromφῦλον“tribe, race”
  2. English todayparaphyletic

From para- (“near”) + Ancient Greek φῦλον (phûlon, “tribe, race”) + -etic.

Words from the same roots

Ancient Greekφῦλον all →

phylogenyphylumphylonphylo-

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.