Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Invertebrate |
InvertebrateAdjective1. (zoology) lacking a backbone or spinal column; "worms are an example of invertebrate animals". Noun1. Any animal lacking a backbone or notochord; the term is not used as a scientific classification. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "invertebrate" was first used: 1826. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Invertebrate is a term coined by Chevalier de Lamarck to describe any animal without a backbone or vertebra, like insects, squids and worms.
He divided them into two groups, the Insecta and the Vermes. However, the invertebrates are not a coherent group of animals, as many are much more closely related to vertebrates as to one another.
This is one of the places where formal taxonomy and common usage diverge. People tend to think of "things like us" and "everything else." In a very broad sense, "vertebrates" are things like us: they at least have bones, unlike all those weird things. Dividing the world into X and not-X is conceptually appealing and sometimes useful, even when the only thing the not-X have in common is that definition by exclusion. In this case, the excluded group, invertebrates, makes up 97% of animals in the world.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Invertebrate."
| Antonym: vertebrate (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Invertebrate |
| English words defined with "invertebrate": arthropod, ascidian ♦ bug ♦ Heterogangliate ♦ Invertebral, Invertebrated ♦ mollusc, mollusk, Myohaematin ♦ Perisome, Procephalic lobe ♦ Retineum ♦ shellfish ♦ zoophyte. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "invertebrate": Animal Structures ♦ Balantidium ♦ Cold-blooded Animals ♦ Ganglia, Invertebrate, Glutamate Decarboxylase ♦ Octopamine ♦ Receptors, Invertebrate Peptide ♦ Toxicity Testing. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | You must take him to his ancient home world, which will soon erupt in an orgy of invertebrate sex. (Futurama; writing credit: Lance Smith; Carl Colpaert) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Invertebrate samples were collected from pipe surfaces for identification. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. |  | Installing a 1/4 square meter grid for counting invertebrate species attaching to interior, roof of pipe. This location was a distinct habitat type ideal for larval settlement of oysters, sponges, bryozoa, and tunicates. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. |
 | Exclusion cages were used to determine the effect of grazing on algal and invertebrate populations on the reef. The carport like extension was used to determine the effect of light reduction on pipe surfaces that were still open to grazing. Pipe surfaces in the cage had distinctly different algal and invertebrate communities than pipes open to grazing. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. |  | A typical invertebrate grouping found on the interior roof of the pipes consisting primarily of bryozoa, tunicates and sponges over the top of oyster shells. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. |
 | A permanent grid station showing outline of sample grid, stainless steel screw used to attach the nylon line, and the invertebrate community typical of the inside roof of pipe. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Invertebrate" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 76.36% of the time. "Invertebrate" is used about 55 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 76.36% | 42 | 52,864 |
| Noun (singular) | 12.73% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (proper) | 7.27% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 1.82% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 1.82% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 55 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "invertebrate": invertebrate foot ♦ Invertebrate Hormones. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "invertebrate": invertebrate-eating. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "invertebrate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | لا فقاري, ضعيف (atonic, cold, crazy, deficient, delicate, dim, emaciated, enervate, faint, feckless, feeble, flabby, flagging, fragile, frail, haggard, helpless, impotent, inaudible, infirm, lame, languid, languorous, lank, lean, limp, little, low, lower, nerveless, pale, powered, powerless, puny, rickety, run down, scant, scrawny, slender, slight, slim, small, soft, softy, streaked, supine, tenuous, thin, thready, toothless, unsubstantial, wan, weak, weakened, weakling, weakly, wimp, wishy washy), اللافقاري حيوان لا فقاري. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | безгръбначно животно, безгръбначен (boneless, molluscous, pithless, spineless). (various references) | |
Chinese | 蟲 (a worm, an animal, an insect, an invertebrate). (various references) | |
Czech | bezobratlý (spineless). (various references) | |
Farsi | نااستوار(مج.), غیرذیفقار, بی مهره , بی عزم , بدون ستون فقرات , بدون استخوان پشت . (various references) | |
Finnish | selkärangaton (spineless). (various references) | |
French | invertébré. (various references) | |
German | wirbellos (spineless). (various references) | |
Greek | ασπόνδυλοσ (spineless), ασπόνδυλος (spineless). (various references) | |
Hebrew | חסר חוליות. (various references) | |
Hungarian | gerinctelen (boneless, pithless, spineless, supple). (various references) | |
Italian | invertebrato (spineless). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 無脊椎動物 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | むせきついどうぶつ. (various references) | |
Manx | gyn craue drommey. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | invertebrateay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | invertebrado, pessoa de carácter mole. (various references) | |
Romanian | nevertebrat (spineless), moale (apathetic, apathetical, doughy, flabby, flexible, languid, languidly, lax, light, limp, limply, mellow, mild, milk and water, pillowy, pulpy, silky, slack, slacky, sloppy, smooth, soft, supine, tame, tender, thawy, velvety, weak, yielding), laş (base-spirited, chicken hearted, coward, cowardly, Craven, cur, dastard, dastardly, faint-hearted, funk, hen-hearted, lily livered, milk-livered, mollycoddle, pigeon-hearted, poltroon, recreant, sneak, sneaky, unmanly, white livered, yellow). (various references) | |
Russian | беспозвоночное беспозвоночный. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | bez kičme (spinelessness), beskičmenjak. (various references) | |
Spanish | invertebrado (spineless). (various references) | |
Swedish | invertebrat, ryggradslöst djur, ryggradslös (spineless), evertebrat. (various references) | |
Turkish | iradesiz (feeble minded, flabby, flaccid, irresolute, non compos, non compos mentis, simple, spineless, volitionless, weak, weak-kneed, weak-minded), zayıf (atonic, bad mark, faint, fatless, feeble, feint, flaccid, flagging, frail, gaunt, gracile, lean, low, nerveless, pithless, poor, puny, shaky, sinewless, slight, slim, small, spare, spent, thin, unmanly, weak, wishy washy, wishywashy), omurgasız hayvan, omurgasız (keelles, spineless). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | безхребетна тварина, безхребетний (boneless, spineless). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | in-. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "invertebrate": invertebrates. (additional references) | |
| |
"Invertebrate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: intertebrate, invertabrate, invertbrate, invertebrae, inverterate, invertibrate. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "invertebrate" (pronounced i'nver"tubrut or i'nver"tubrā't) |
| 4 | -b r u t | elaborate. |
| 3 | -r u t | beret, carat, carrot, culprit, curate, demerit, desperate, ferret, garret, inherit, interpret, karat, merit, noncorporate, parrot, pirate, portrait, reinterpret, secret, spirit, supersecret, temperate. |
| 8 | -v er" t u b r ā' t | vertebrate. |
| 5 | -u b r ā' t | calibrate, celebrate. |
| 3 | -r ā' t | airfreight, arbitrate, administrate, aspirate, birthrate, carbohydrate, castrate, concentrate, consecrate, illustrate, immigrate, demonstrate, denigrate, disintegrate, emigrate, frustrate, gyrate, hydrate, infiltrate, integrate, magistrate, migrate, narrate, nitrate, orchestrate, penetrate, perpetrate, reintegrate, serrate, substrate. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-e-e-e-i-n-r-r-t-t-v" | |
-2 letters: inveterate, travertine, vertebrate. | |
-3 letters: reiterate, retentive, revertant, veratrine, vertebrae. | |
-4 letters: antevert, banterer, barrette, battener, batterie, bereaver, berretta, birretta, bitterer, brattier, enervate, inverter, rattener, retainer, retirant, retrieve, reverent, taverner, tenebrae, venerate, veratrin, vertebra. | |
-5 letters: abetter, arbiter, arenite, ariette, barnier, battier, beerier, bereave, beretta, betaine, biretta, bittern, brevier, enterer, entreat, intreat, iterant, iterate, naivete, nattier, navette. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-e-e-e-i-n-r-r-t-t-v" | |
+1 letter: invertebrates. | |
+2 letters: intervertebral. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
