Etymology

polyphyletic

P3O1L1Y4P3H4Y4L1E1T1I1C3

Today it means: Having multiple ancestral sources; referring to a taxon that does not contain the most recent common ancestor of its members. Full definition →

English phyletic ← Ancient Greek πολῠ́ς (polŭ́s) ← Proto-Indo-European *polh₁ús
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*pleh₁-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*polh₁ús
  3. Ancient Greekπολῠ́ς (polŭ́s)
  4. Englishpoly-
  5. Englishphyletic
  6. English todaypolyphyletic

From poly- + phyletic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.