tax·on·o·my (t k-s n  -m )n. pl. tax·on·o·mies 1. The classification of organisms in an ordered system that indicates natural relationships. 2. The science, laws, or principles of classification; systematics. 3. Division into ordered groups or categories: "Scholars have been laboring to develop a taxonomy of young killers" (Aric Press). [French taxonomie : Greek taxis, arrangement; see taxis + -nomie, method (from Greek -nomi  ; see -nomy).]tax·on o·mist n.Taxonomy of LifeThe taxonomic organization of species is hierarchical. Each species belongs to a genus, each genus belongs to a family, and so on through order, class, phylum, and kingdom. Associations within the hierarchy reflect evolutionary relationships, which are deduced typically from morphological and physiological similarities between species. So, for example, species in the same genus are more closely related and more alike than species that are in different genera within the same family. Carolus Linnaeus, an 18th-century Swedish botanist, devised the system of binomial nomenclature used for naming species. In this system, each species is given a two-part Latin name, formed by appending a specific epithet to the genus name. By convention, the genus name is capitalized, and both the genus name and specific epithet are italicized, for Canis familiaris or simply C. familiaris. Modern taxonomy is currently in flux, and certain aspects of classification are being refined. This table shows one traditional classification of five species of life out of the estimated five million species of the world.
* In botanical nomenclature, "division" is used instead of "phylum." Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company |
taxonomy [tækˈsɒnəmɪ]
| taxonomy (tk-sn-m) The scientific classification of organisms into specially named groups based either on shared characteristics or on evolutionary relationships as inferred from the fossil record or established by genetic analysis. |   |
taxonomy, taxology
2. the scientific identification, naming, and classification of living things. Also called systematics. — taxonomist, n. — taxonomie, taxonomical, adj.
| Noun | 1. | taxonomy - a classification of organisms into groups based on similarities of structure or origin etc hierarchy - a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system; "put honesty first in her hierarchy of values" |
| 2. | taxonomy - (biology) study of the general principles of scientific classification biological science, biology - the science that studies living organisms systematics - the science of systematic classification cladistic analysis, cladistics - a system of biological taxonomy based on the quantitative analysis of comparative data and used to reconstruct cladograms summarizing the (assumed) phylogenetic relations and evolutionary history of groups of organisms | |
| 3. | taxonomy - practice of classifying plants and animals according to their presumed natural relationships classification, compartmentalisation, compartmentalization, assortment, categorisation, categorization - the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type |
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