Heterophyly

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The tendency of different types of individuals to form relationships. uncountable

    "Heterophyly (where a plant has quite different leaves in the juvenile stage compared to the mature state) is just one of many traits manifesting apparently widespread parallel evolution in the plant kingdom […]"

Example

More examples

"Heterophyly (where a plant has quite different leaves in the juvenile stage compared to the mature state) is just one of many traits manifesting apparently widespread parallel evolution in the plant kingdom […]"

Etymology

From hetero- + -phyly.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.