taxonomist

American  

[taks-ah-nuhm-ist] / tæksˈɑ nəm ɪst /

noun

taxonomists plural

1. an expert or practitioner in taxonomy, especially in biology.

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Other Word Forms

• non-taxonomist
  noun

Explanation

A taxonomist is a biologist that groups organisms into categories. A plant taxonomist for example, might study the origins and relationships between different types of roses while an insect taxonomist might focus on the relationships between different types of beetles. A taxonomist is not to be confused with a taxidermist, a person who specializes in the stuffing and mounting of dead animals. It's true, both words share their origins in the Greek taxis meaning "arrangement." But in the case of a taxonomist, it's not dead animals that are being arranged, it's hierarchies of species.

Example Sentences

“It’s outrageous what’s going on,” says Robert Scotland, a plant taxonomist at the University of Oxford.

From Science Magazine • Oct. 10, 2023

Jackson Means, a millipede taxonomist at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, told Undark he had only seen similar conditions in an alcohol collection that had been left unattended in a warehouse for 22 years.

From Salon • Jul. 7, 2023

Ricardo Viñas, who in November was laid off from his Seattle-based job as an information taxonomist for Meta, also wants less of that uncertainty.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 5, 2023

So today we’re bringing you something in that spirit: an interview with Jennifer Parrucci, a senior taxonomist at The Times, about the interesting things she has found digging through the paper’s 171-year archives.

From New York Times • Dec. 25, 2022

Mendel, as we shall see, was an instinctual gardener—a breeder of plants, a counter of seeds, an isolator of traits; Darwin was a garden digger—a classifier of plants, an organizer of specimens, a taxonomist.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee