phylogeny

Borrowed from German Phylogenie, coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866, a neologism created as if borrowed from a Classic Greek word φυλογένεια (phulogéneia), composed from Ancient Greek φῦλον (phûlon, “tribe, genus, species”) + Ancient Greek -γένεια (-géneia, “-geny (generation, production)”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /faɪˈlɒd͡ʒəni/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /faɪˈlɑd͡ʒəni/

• Audio (US):

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phylogeny (countable and uncountable, plural phylogenies)

1. (systematics) The evolutionary history of groups of organisms, such as species or clades.
   • 2022, Paul McAuley, Beyond the Burn Line, Gollancz, page 43:

     It was a bestiary more than a hundred years old, its entries organised by a quaintly outdated phylogeny and illustrated with hand-tinted plates.

2. (systematics, informal) A phylogenetic diagram.

   Hyponym: tree of life

   Holonym: tree of life

3. The historical development of a human social or racial group.

   Understanding the phylogeny of this musical group helps us understand its music.

4. The historical development of any thing, idea, etc.
   • 2010, The Journey of Child Development, →ISBN:

     Indeed, in a recent review article, Mithen (2009) traces the phylogeny of human communication […]

• phylogenesis

• cophylogeny
• geophylogeny
• macrophylogeny
• ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

• phylogenetics
• phylogenic
• phylesis

• ontogeny
• philoxenia

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “phylogeny”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.