placoderm

English

Etymology

From placo- +‎ -derm, after German Placoderm.

Noun

placoderm (plural placoderms)

  1. (paleontology) A member of an extinct class (Placodermi) of jawed fish with armored heads; the group lived during the Silurian and Devonian periods. [from 19th c.]
    • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, 2013 edition, Granta Books, page 12:
      Out to sea are placoderms – heavily armoured fish, some of them more than six metres (twenty feet) long and equipped with massive, powerful jaws.

Adjective

placoderm (comparative more placoderm, superlative most placoderm)

  1. (paleontology) Pertaining to the class Placodermi. [from 19th c.]
    • 2018, Elsa Panciroli, The Guardian, 24 January:
      Research published recently on placoderm fish fossils from Scottish Devonian lakes (around 365 myo) found evidence for how this extinct group of animals copulated.

See also
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