Meanings
plural placoderms
- biologyA member of an extinct paraphyletic class (†Placodermi) of jawed fish with armored heads and thoraces; the group lived during the Silurian and Devonian periods.First known use 19th c.
Out to sea are placoderms – heavily armoured fish, some of them more than six metres (twenty feet) long and equipped with massive, powerful jaws.
2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 12
- not comparablebiologyPertaining to the paraphyletic class †Placodermi.First known use 19th c.
Research published recently on placoderm fish fossils from Scottish Devonian lakes (around 365 myo) found evidence for how this extinct group of animals copulated.
2018 January 24, Elsa Panciroli, The Guardian
Origin
- GermanPlacoderm
- Englishplacoderm
From placo- + -derm, after German Placoderm.
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
placoderm. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/placoderm
“placoderm.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/placoderm. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “placoderm,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/placoderm.
Source: placoderm on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.