METAZOAN (metazoa)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: metazoa   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does metazoan mean? 

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

1. any animal of the subkingdom Metazoa; all animals except protozoans and sponges

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• METAZOAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any animal of the subkingdom Metazoa; all animals except protozoans and sponges

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

animal; animate being; beast; brute; creature; fauna (a living organism characterized by voluntary movement)

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

Metazoa; subkingdom Metazoa (multicellular animals having cells differentiated into tissues and organs and usually a digestive cavity and nervous system)

 Context examples 

The Notch signaling pathway is an evolutionarily conserved, intercellular signaling mechanism essential for proper embryonic development in all metazoan organisms in the Animal kingdom.

(Notch Signaling Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)