Definitions

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

  • noun The branch of biology that deals with the form and structure of organisms without consideration of function.
  • noun The form and structure of an organism or one of its parts.
  • noun Linguistics The study of the structure and form of words in language or a language, including inflection, derivation, and the formation of compounds.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In physical geography, the study of the form of lands.
  • noun Structural psychology (which see).
  • noun The science of organic form; the science of the outer form and internal structure (without regard to the functions) of animals and plants; that department of knowledge which treats both of the ideal types or plans of structure, and of their actual development or expression in living organisms. It has the same scope and application in organic nature that crystallology has in the inorganic.
  • noun The science of structure, or of forms, in language.

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

  • noun (Biol.) That branch of biology which deals with the structure of animals and plants, treating of the forms of organs and describing their varieties, homologies, and metamorphoses. See tectology, and promorphology.
  • noun (Biol.) The form and structure of an organism.
  • noun (Linguistics) The branch of linguistics which studies the patterns by which words are formed from other words, including inflection, compounding, and derivation.
  • noun The study of the patterns of inflection of words or word classes in any given language; the study of the patterns in which morphemes combine to form words, and the rules for combination; morphemics; ; also, the inflection patterns themselves.

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

  • noun uncountable A scientific study of form and structure, usually without regard to function. Especially:
  • noun countable The form and structure of something.
  • noun countable A description of the form and structure of something.

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

  • noun the branch of geology that studies the characteristics and configuration and evolution of rocks and land forms
  • noun the admissible arrangement of sounds in words
  • noun the branch of biology that deals with the structure of animals and plants
  • noun studies of the rules for forming admissible words

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek: morpho- +‎ -logy

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Examples

  • Make the connection to advice (noun) and advise (verb) – the morphology is the same but the distinction in pronunciation has been lost from practi [c, s] e.

    What Are Your Favourite Spelling Memory Aids? | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants.

    Autobiography and Selected Essays 2003

  • It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants.

    Autobiography and Selected Essays Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895 1909

  • It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants.

    Autobiography and Selected Essays Thomas Henry Huxley 1860

  • It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants.

    Science & Education Thomas Henry Huxley 1860

  • We understand many engines of variation and selection, see makers of common ancestry in morphology and genetics, as well as teh fossil record.

    Critical Thinking Exercise: Bad Design 2010

  • I detailed the basis of my notion of the scientific method as recognising that an alethic morphology is not an epistemic certainty.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • No, said Einstein, that alethic morphology is not an epistemic certainty.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • Richardthughes: see makers of common ancestry in morphology and genetics,

    Critical Thinking Exercise: Bad Design 2010

  • We understand many engines of variation and selection, see makers of common ancestry in morphology and genetics, as well as teh fossil record.

    Critical Thinking Exercise: Bad Design 2010

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