Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various slow-moving, microscopic invertebrates of the phylum Tardigrada, related to the arthropods and having four body segments and eight legs and living in water or damp moss. Also called water bear.
- adj. Of or belonging to the Tardigrada.
- adj. Slow in action; slow-moving.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Slowgoing; slow in movement; specifically, noting the Tardigrada in either sense. Compare gravigrade.
- n. One of the Tardigrada.
Wiktionary
- adj. Sluggish; moving slowly.
- n. zoology A member of the animal phylum Tardigrada.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. rare Moving or stepping slowly; slow-paced.
- adj. (Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to the Tardigrada.
- n. (Zoöl.) One of the Tardigrada.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an arthropod of the division Tardigrada
Etymologies
- From Latin tardigradus ("slowly stepping"), from tardus ("slow") + gradior ("step, walk") (Wiktionary)
- New Latin Tardigrada, phylum name, from neuter pl. of Latin tardigradus, slow-moving : tardus, slow + -gradus, walking, moving (from gradī, to go; see transgress). Adj., sense 2, from Latin tardigradus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
““The Omnipod said he was a species of tardigrade, or water bear.””
““Eva Nine, I have heard stories of beasts telepathically imprinting onto others—like wild dargs becoming tame for frint farmers—but what you call a ‘tardigrade’ is no pet.””
“But, as you suggested regarding the tardigrade, I need to speak with them.”
“I asked, indicating the tardigrade, “What has this to do with me?””
“That's a tardigrade or waterbear, one of the world's hardiest living species!”
“There are several freshwater micrometazoans -- tardigrades leap to mind -- that live in ostensibly terrestrial habitats at human scales (such as a clump of moss), but that are only metabolically active when these areas are "damp" (which, to a tardigrade, means "totally submerged").”
“I forgot to ask him what the tardigrade tasted like.”
“Not much tardigrade love there, so instead, let me offer links to www.tardigrades.com, tardigrades.bio.unc.edu, and the actual tardigradesinspace.blogspot.com site which hasn't been updated since November.”
“Swedish researchers loaded two species of tardigrade already in their desiccated form onto the European Space Agency's Biopan-6 experimental platform, where for 10 days they were exposed to the radiation, vacuum and low temperature of space.”
“The most common species are the tardigrade, or "water-bear", and a small shrimp nicknamed the sea-monkey.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tardigrade’.
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phrontistery-t
from phrontistery.info
tyromancy, tyroma, tyroid, tyriasis, tyrannicide, typtology, typothetae, typomania, typography, typographia, typhonic, typhomania and 930 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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the (chained) unbearable cuteness of ...
You know what I'm talking about. Look for the images...
tapir, pangolin, pika, chunky baby chow ..., roundbelly cowfish, tree octopus, turtlenecked stra..., furze-pig, otter, bilby, wallaby, meerkat and 43 more...
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Animals (besides pottos)
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robin, wagtail, frog, bunny, pronk, rabbit, fur, badger, mouse, bee, crepuscular, purr and 140 more...
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wordhoard
dilatory, ataraxia, hermit, cabana, hut, dome, vestigial, porcine, crapulous, usufruct, curmudgeon, bombastic and 229 more...
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oldecat's Words
noncommutative, morphodynamics, ferrywoman, circumcircle, acceleration, inactivity, biodiesel, corrosion, quadrilogy, imprimitivity, normalizer, teleosemantics and 240 more...
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Critters
cockle, cicada, appaloosa, brachiopod, bivalve, aye-aye, cygnet, alewife, chamois, ermine, drake, dugong and 381 more...
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Slow or Sluggish
English or Latin words meaning slow, sluggish, slow-paced, tardy-paced, slow-footed, tardy-footed, halting, or slow in speaking.
lent, languid, ignave, lento, jacent, tardy, torpid, tardipes, tardigrade, tardigradous, tardiloquent
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Animal Crackers
camel, dromedary, cabbit, doglet, wren, lynx, ermine, capybara, magpie, mallard, heron, loach and 33 more...
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drzeus's Words
callipygian, niggardly, onomatopoeically, grandiloquence, verbiage, plinth, polymath, obfuscate, megalomartyr, chiliad, legerity, pessimal and 45 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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words for Word
nanoparticle, nanoscale, hadron, ultracold, kiffian, intramolecular, triazine, fermion, superfluid, metamaterial, subduction, perovskite and 53 more...
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Make the grade
Words ending with -grade; those describing methods of locomotion in animals are grouped together, starting with "ciliograde".
aggrade, altigrade, antegrade, anterograde, belgrade, bigrade, biodegrade, centigrade, decigrade, degrade, disgrade, downgrade and 48 more...
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mcbaine's Words
surficant, vicissitude, erinaceous, battousai, himura, wang, pedagogical, pedantic, immure, tertiary, tetrahedron, widget and 104 more...
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words I like
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invincible and invisible creatures
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tardigrade.

reesetee Moss piglets? Haha! Sep 10, 2008
Prolagus See also Jönsson et al 2008 Curr Biol. This cutie is tough! Sep 10, 2008