vertebrate Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium
    craniate.
  2. adjective having a backbone or spinal column
    • fishes and amphibians and reptiles and birds and mammals are verbetrate animals

WordNet

Ver"te*brate noun
Definitions
  1. (Zoöl.) One of the Vertebrata.
Ver"te*brate, Ver"te*bra`ted adjective (Also<
  • Vertebrate
  • Vertebrated
)
Etymology
L. vertebratus.
Definitions
  1. (Anat.) Having a backbone, or vertebral column, containing the spinal marrow, as man, quadrupeds, birds, amphibia, and fishes.
  2. (Bot.) Contracted at intervals, so as to resemble the spine in animals. Henslow.
  3. (Zoöl.) Having movable joints resembling vertebræ; -- said of the arms ophiurans.
  4. (Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to the Vertebrata; -- used only in the form vertebrate.

Webster 1913