Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Lagomorph
/ˈlæɡəmɔːrf/noun
A mammal of the order containing rabbits, hares and pikas.
The Greek roots
λαγώς
lagṓs
hare
μορφή
morphḗ
form, shape
Literally: “hare-shaped”
The story of the word
Rabbits were filed with rodents until 1912, when J. W. Gidley separated them on the teeth: lagomorphs carry a second small pair of incisors tucked directly behind the front pair, and no rodent does. The Greek lagōs is the hare of the fable races and of Greek cookery. Morphē supplies the second half of a whole shelf of zoological names.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
morphologyamorphousmetamorphosis
In a sentence
Pikas look like guinea pigs and are in fact lagomorphs, cousins of the rabbit.