Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The after-intestine; the secondary and in any way differentiated alimentary canal or digestive tube which is derived from an original primary intestinal cavity, or protogaster. It is the ordinary intestinal canal of vertebrates except Amphioxus.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The primitive gut of the gastrula has, on this view, been divided into two parts in the higher animals as a result of the cenogenetic formation of the food-yelk -- the permanent gut (metagaster), or permanent alimentary canal, and the yelk-sac (lecithoma), or umbilical vesicle.

    The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

  • (metagaster) and mouth (metastoma) has been much criticised; but it is as much justified as the distinction between the primitive kidneys and the permanent kidneys.

    The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

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