Heteroclitic
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A heteroclitic noun.
- 1 Irregular in inflection.
- 2 Signifying a nominal stem which alternates between more than one form when declined for grammatical case, particularly in the suffix (such as between *-r̥- in the strong stem and *-n̥- in the weak stem). Indo-European-studies
"The Proto-Indo-European term *wódr̥ (“water”) is typical of nouns with heteroclitic stems: the strong stem *wódr̥- occurs in the direct cases while the weak stem *wédn̥- is found instead in the oblique cases, hence the contrast between nominative *wódr̥ and genitive *wédn̥s."
- 3 Pertaining to antibodies that react to a wide variety of antigens.
"[…] a heteroclitic response was never observed after the immunization with the deamidated peptide […]"
Example
More examples"The Proto-Indo-European term *wódr̥ (“water”) is typical of nouns with heteroclitic stems: the strong stem *wódr̥- occurs in the direct cases while the weak stem *wédn̥- is found instead in the oblique cases, hence the contrast between nominative *wódr̥ and genitive *wédn̥s."
Etymology
From hetero- + clitic.
Related phrases
More for "heteroclitic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.