COPEPOD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does copepod mean? 

• COPEPOD (noun)
  The noun COPEPOD has 1 sense:

1. minute marine or freshwater crustaceans usually having six pairs of limbs on the thorax; some abundant in plankton and others parasitic on fish

  Familiarity information: COPEPOD used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COPEPOD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Minute marine or freshwater crustaceans usually having six pairs of limbs on the thorax; some abundant in plankton and others parasitic on fish

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

copepod; copepod crustacean

Hypernyms ("copepod" is a kind of...):

crustacean (any mainly aquatic arthropod usually having a segmented body and chitinous exoskeleton)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "copepod"):

brit; britt (minute crustaceans forming food for right whales)

cyclops; water flea (minute free-swimming freshwater copepod having a large median eye and pear-shaped body and long antennae used in swimming; important in some food chains and as intermediate hosts of parasitic worms that affect man e.g. Guinea worms)

fish louse (a kind of copepod)

Holonyms ("copepod" is a part of...):

plankton (the aggregate of small plant and animal organisms that float or drift in great numbers in fresh or salt water)

Holonyms ("copepod" is a member of...):

Copepoda; subclass Copepoda (minute planktonic or parasitic crustaceans)

 Context examples 

They are especially abundant in tiny crustaceans such as krill and copepods — favorite prey of filter-feeding bowhead and endangered North Atlantic right whales.

(Whales may owe their efficient digestion to millions of tiny microbes, National Science Foundation)