# morphophyly

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. The direct study of the evolution of forms rather than observation of its supposed ontogenic recapitulation.

## Etymology
Simplified learned borrowing from German Morphophylogenie, itself from morph- + Phylogenie; equivalent to a reduction of morpho- + phylogeny to morpho- (“shape”) + -phyly (“tribehood”).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/morphophyly