flatworm

flat·worm  (fltwûrm)

n.

Any of various parasitic and nonparasitic worms of the phylum Platyhelminthes, such as a tapeworm or a planarian, characteristically having a soft, flat, bilaterally symmetrical body and no body cavity. Also called platyhelminth.

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flatworm

Noun

a worm, such as a tapeworm, with a flattened body

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flatworm  (fltwûrm)

Any of various parasitic and nonparasitic worms of the phylum Platyhelminthes, characteristically having a soft, flat, bilaterally symmetrical body. Flatworms lack a coelom (body cavity), respiratory system, and circulatory system, but are the most primitive invertebrates to have a brain. The evolutionary history of flatworms is uncertain, but they share some basic characteristics with rotifers, nematodes, and a few other invertebrate phyla. Cestodes (tapeworms), planarians, and trematodes (flukes) are flatworms.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

flatworm - parasitic or free-living worms having a flattened body platyhelminth flame cell - organ of excretion in flatworms worm - any of numerous relatively small elongated soft-bodied animals especially of the phyla Annelida and Chaetognatha and Nematoda and Nemertea and Platyhelminthes; also many insect larvae phylum Platyhelminthes, Platyhelminthes - flatworms planaria, planarian - free-swimming mostly freshwater flatworms; popular in laboratory studies for the ability to regenerate lost parts trematode, trematode worm, fluke - parasitic flatworms having external suckers for attaching to a host cestode, tapeworm - ribbonlike flatworms that are parasitic in the intestines of humans and other vertebrates