plant-animal

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From plant + animal, after French plant-animal (obsolete), from post-classical Latin plantanimal (16th c.), after Hellenistic Ancient Greek ζωόφυτον (zōóphuton, zoophyte).

Noun

[edit]

plant-animal (plural plant-animals)

  1. (now rare) An organism having characteristics of both plants and animals; a zoophyte, later chiefly an animal with structural resemblances to a plant. [from 17th c.]
    • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, section XXII:
      From which Description, they [sponges] seem to be a kind of Plant-Animal that adheres to a Rock […].
    • 1941, Richard Headstrom, Adventures with a Microscope:
      There are some three hundred more of such plant-animals and collectively they represent a group called the Flagellates, which is neither plant nor animal, but intermediate.