Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of numerous small marine or freshwater crustaceans of the subclass Copepoda, including parasitic and free-living forms.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to the Copepoda. Also copepodous.
  • noun One of the Copepoda. Also copepodan.

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

  • adjective (Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to the Copepoda.

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

  • noun Any of very many small crustaceans, of the subclass Copepoda, that are widely distributed and ecologically important; they include the water fleas

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

  • noun minute marine or freshwater crustaceans usually having six pairs of limbs on the thorax; some abundant in plankton and others parasitic on fish

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From New Latin Cōpēpoda, order name : Greek kōpē, oar; see kap- in Indo-European roots + New Latin -poda, -pod.]

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Examples

  • Its "cigar" is in fact a parasitic crustacean known as a copepod, but no one knows what the blobfish does with its comical nose.

    Where Wonders Await Us Flannery, Tim 2007

  • *So that you're not kept in suspense, a copepod is a small marine crustracean (i.e., a little animal lacking the cuteness of a cat) that forms a crucial part of the food web between marine plankton (little plants) and fish.

    Yeee---ikes! mariness 2003

  • This image of a tiny crustacean called a copepod is one of the winners of this year's Nikon Small World photography competition.

    Boing Boing Maggie Koerth-Baker 2011

  • Plentiful algae amplify the population of a tiny shrimp-like creature called a copepod - in particular, a kind called Eurytemora.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • In this paper the authors report on the use of photochemically 
 active biocides for the treatment of a marine copepod, which is a model of parasitic sea lice.

    Fishupdate.com 2009

  • Vibrio cholerae is associated with a type of crustacean called a copepod that appears naturally in many areas of the world.

    Signs of the Times 2008

  • A closeup of Eurytemora, a kind of copepod that serves as a reservoir for the cholera bacterium.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • A closeup of Eurytemora, a kind of copepod that serves as a reservoir for the cholera bacterium.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • The harpacticoid copepod Tigriopus californicus inhabits rocky, intertidal splash pools in a patchy distribution along the west coast of North America.

    Breaking news about baseball bats ewillett 2008

  • A final copepod project involves understanding the genetic basis of a vital physiological process in these copepods-their ability to survive dramatic changes in salinity.

    Breaking news about baseball bats ewillett 2008

Comments

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  • "'What were you observing, sir?'

    "'Luminous organisms, mostly minute pelagic crustaceans, copepods; but I need calmer water for it, the good calm water we have had almost all the way. How I pray it may grow quiet again before we leave the sargasso quite behind.'"

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 144

    February 20, 2008