type specimen

American

noun

Biology.

an individual organism from which the description of a species has been prepared.

type specimen British

noun

Also called: holotype. biology the original specimen from which a description of a new species is made

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of type specimen

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

type specimen

In 2020, the authors set a goal to get a genome sequence for every Psilocybe type specimen.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 9, 2024

The general accepted standards are to have a type specimen, or even better, a series of specimens.

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2021

The type specimen of H. habilis, for example, includes a 1.8-million-year-old lower jaw called OH 7 from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 4, 2015

The type specimen still existed, but it was bleached of colour and in pretty bad shape, and there were not many other examples to examine.

From Nature ● Sep. 12, 2013

It became his earnest wish to be declared the type specimen for Homo sapiens–that is, that his bones would be the official set for the human race.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023