PARAZOAN

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

Irregular inflected form: parazoa

Meaning:

Primitive multicellular marine animal whose porous body is supported by a fibrous skeletal framework; usually occurs in sessile colonies

Synonyms:

parazoan; poriferan; sponge

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

invertebrate (any animal lacking a backbone or notochord; the term is not used as a scientific classification)

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

glass sponge (a siliceous sponge (with glassy spicules) of the class Hyalospongiae)

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

phylum Porifera; Porifera (coextensive with the subkingdom Parazoa: sponges)