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Added 9 October 2026

clade

/kleɪd/ noun

In Latin: cladus Coined: 1957 Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about clade at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A group of biological taxa or species that share features inherited from a common ancestor.

Origin

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 and possibly holt.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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