phylogeny

noun

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phy·log·e·ny | \ fī-ˈlä-jə-nē

plural phylogenies

Definition of phylogeny

1 : the evolutionary history of a kind of organism

2 : the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism

3 : the history or course of the development of something (such as a word or custom)

Examples of phylogeny in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Tracking down and sequencing the DNA of all the samples at the heart of this phylogeny took the project’s 21 collaborators six years. — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, "Earth’s Harshest Ecosystems May Birth New Species Fastest," 10 Dec. 2020 The researchers’ main goal was to create an accurate, detailed evolutionary tree, or phylogeny, for this large group of birds by sequencing the DNA of every single species in the group. — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, "Earth’s Harshest Ecosystems May Birth New Species Fastest," 10 Dec. 2020 Overview of the history of discovery, taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of Majungasaurus crenatissimus from the late Cretaceous of Madagascar. — Fox News, "70M year-old dinosaur replaced its teeth as fast as sharks," 3 Dec. 2019 So this evidence provides information about the timing of arrival of this ancestry type, and their movement parallels the linguistic phylogeny of Indo-European languages, which today are spoken in places as far away as Ireland to New Delhi. — Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian, "Rare Ancient DNA Provides Window Into a 5,000-Year-Old South Asian Civilization," 5 Sep. 2019 As early as 1909, folklorists started comparing the evolution of stories and organisms, envisioning Linnaean taxonomies and evolutionary trees, or phylogenies, for myths and tales. — Ferris Jabr, Harper's magazine, "The Story of Storytelling," 10 Mar. 2019 Creating a complete phylogeny of birds is likely to resolve this dispute, or at least offer new evidence. — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, "What We Can Learn From a New Bird Tree of Life," 21 Apr. 2018 Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project has the goal of creating a full tree of life, or phylogeny, for the world’s birds. — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, "What We Can Learn From a New Bird Tree of Life," 21 Apr. 2018 These phylogenies help researchers looking at the evolutionary histories of specific avian traits or the story of birds overall. — Elizabeth Pennisi, Science | AAAS, "Bigger, better bird tree of life will soon fly into view," 16 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'phylogeny.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.