Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • The annelids or Annelides, a class of invertebrate animals, of the phylum Vermes, sometimes called the class of red-blooded worms.
  • In Huxley's system (1877), a superordinal division including the Polychœta, Oligochœta, Hirudinea, and Gephyrea, with the Myzostomata doubtfully added thereto: a group the members of which resemble one another generally in the segmentation of the body indicated at least by the serially multiganglionate nervous centers (wanting in most Gephyrea), in the presence of cilia and segmental organs, and in the nature of the larvæ, which are set free when the embryos hatch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun plural (Zoöl.) A division of the Articulata, having the body formed of numerous rings or annular segments, and without jointed legs. The principal subdivisions are the Chætopoda, including the Oligochæta or earthworms and Polychæta or marine worms; and the Hirudinea or leeches. See chætopoda.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A taxonomic phylum within the superphylum Protostomia — the annelid worms.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun segmented worms: earthworms; lugworms; leeches

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin anellus, little ring

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Examples

  • Maybe five year olds, the ones troweling up dirt, practicing the long-forgotten art of making mud pies, daring each other to snort an earthworm for that Annelida high.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Paul 2010

  • Maybe five year olds, the ones troweling up dirt, practicing the long-forgotten art of making mud pies, daring each other to snort an earthworm for that Annelida high.

    "The Garden" by James Dorr (Damnation Books) Paul 2010

  • Arthropoda for 150 years were believed to originate from Annelida, but now they are derived from Nematoda.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • Of the phyla you haven't seen alive, I have seen: Chaetognatha, Nematomorpha, Nemertea, Sipuncula, Echiura which is really a subgroup of Annelida, Phoronida and Brachiopoda.

    So many phyla so little time AYDIN 2008

  • In fact, there are so many species of beetles that there are more species of beetles than the total number of species currently living in the Phyla Echinodermata, Mollusca, Annelida, Platyhelminthes, Cnidaria, and Porifera combined!

    Species richness 2007

  • Megascolides australis phylum Annelida is truly a giant among terrestrial invertebrates; according to this document lengths of adults average under 1 m.

    Archive 2006-01-01 AYDIN 2006

  • At this time he considered _Balanoglossus_ -- by reason of its gill-slits (its notochord he did not know) -- to be the nearest living representative of the ancestral form of Vertebrates and Annelida.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • Geoffroy's principle of the unity of plan and composition to the three great metameric groups, the Annelida, Arthropoda, and Vertebrata.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • Having established this primary principle, Semper has little difficulty in showing that the main organs of the body lie to one another in the same relative positions in Annelida, Arthropoda, and Vertebrata; and this, together with the metameric segmentation common to them all, constitutes his first great argument in favour of their genetic relationship.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • The main assumption was that the neural or blastoporal surface must be homologous throughout the Metazoa, though it was dorsal in the Chordata, ventral in the Annelida and Arthropoda.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

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