Clade
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A group of animals or other organisms derived from a common ancestor species.
"All three clades containing Prunum and “Volvarina” species contain morphological features that do not collectively appear in any other living or fossil marginellid species (see above)."
- 2 a group of biological taxa or species that share features inherited from a common ancestor wordnet
- 3 A higher level grouping of a genetic haplogroup.
- 1 To be part of a clade; to form a clade.
"The phylogenetic tree for CiCBR shows it clades with the human cannabinoid receptors rather than with those other human GPCRs which most closely resemble the cannabinoid receptors."
Example
More examples""Are reptiles a clade?" "Not unless you count birds and mammals as reptiles.""
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos, “shoot, branch”). Coined by British evolutionary biologist, philosopher, author Julian Huxley in 1957 in a paper titled The Three Types of Evolutionary Process in Nature. Doublet of cladus.
Related phrases
More for "clade"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.