morphologist

American  

[mawr-fahl-uh-jist] / mɔrˈfɑl ə dʒɪst /

noun

plural

morphologists

1. a specialist in morphology.

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Explanation

A morphologist is a person who studies the shape and structure of either living things or words, depending on their field of study. Morphologists study form and structure. In biology, they explore how the shapes of organisms adapt to environments, such as variations in fish fins. In linguistics, they analyze word structures, understanding how different parts form meanings. For instance, a linguistic morphologist would know that the word "morphologist" comes from the Greek word morphē, which means "form," and the suffix -logist, meaning "one who studies."

Example Sentences

Yet how tongues came about “is one of the biggest mysteries in our evolutionary history,” says Sam Van Wassenbergh, a functional morphologist at the University of Antwerp.

From Science Magazine • May 24, 2023

“It’s very confusing why they lost their tail,” said Gabrielle Russo, an evolutionary morphologist at Stony Brook University in New York who was not involved in the study.

From New York Times • Sep. 21, 2021

Both played a role, but this event was triggered by something else, says Rajiv Sinha, a river morphologist at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, who has studied it in detail.

From Science Magazine • May 13, 2021

On 31 January, plant morphologist Dmitry Sokoloff of Moscow State University and his colleagues published a reanalysis of the data that suggests a different arrangement of key female reproductive structures in the first flower.

From Scientific American • Feb. 6, 2018

One has constantly to remember in dealing with Geoffroy's theories that he was not an evolutionist, but purely a morphologist.

From Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology by E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell