"group of organisms evolved from a common ancestor," 1957, from Greek klados "young branch, offshoot of a plant, shoot broken off," from PIE *kele-, possibly from root *kel- "to strike, cut" (see holt).
Entries linking to clade
holt n.
Old English holt "woods, forest, grove, thicket," common in place names, from Proto-Germanic *hultam- (source also of Old Frisian, Old Norse, Middle Dutch holt, Dutch hout, German Holz "a wood, wood as timber"), from PIE *kldo- (source also of Old Church Slavonic klada "beam, timber;" Russian koloda, Lithuanian kalada "block of wood, log;" Greek klados "twig;" Old Irish caill "wood"), from root *kel- "to strike, cut."
cladism n.
"theory or practice of cladistic taxonomy," 1966, from clade + -ism. Related: Cladist.
cladistic adj.
1960, from clade + -istic. Related: Cladistics "systematic classification of life forms" (1965; see -ics).