The story
- Ancient Greek · derived fromφυτόν“plant”
- English todayphytoplankton
From phyto- + plankton. From Ancient Greek φυτόν (phutón, “plant”) + πλαγκτόν (planktón), neuter of πλαγκτός (planktós, “wandering”). However, they are no longer classified as plants, so the terminology is showing a historical meaning.
Words from the same roots
Ancient Greekφυτόν all →
phyton-phytephytotelma
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.