Word.ws English Dictionary

palearctic

palearctic adjective: relating to the Palearctic.

Adjective

palearctic (comparative more palearctic, superlative most palearctic)

  1. Relating to the Palearctic.

Proper noun capitalized: Palearctic

the Palearctic

  1. One of the major ecozones of the world, covering Europe, the former territories of the USSR, part of North Africa, and North Asia including the Himalaya foothills.

Forms of palearctic

Adjective
comparativemore palearctic
superlativemost palearctic
alternative formPalearctic
Proper noun
alternative formPalaearctic

Origin of palearctic

Adjectival form of Palearctic, mirroring the relation between Arctic and arctic.

Coined by English zoologist, ornithologist, and lawyer Philip Sclater in 1858 as one of the six general groupings of fauna, based on shared biogeography and large-scale geographic barriers to migration. Derived from paleo- + Arctic in contrast to neo- + Arctic (Nearctic), in reference to the Northern ("Arctic") portions of the Old World and the New World respectively.

Words formed from palearctic

Questions about palearctic

What does palearctic mean?
Palearctic means relating to the Palearctic.
What part of speech is palearctic?
Palearctic can be an adjective or a proper noun.

Words near palearctic in the dictionary

  1. paleanthropological
  2. paleanthropology
  3. paleaodistribution
  4. paleaquult
  5. paleaquults
  6. palearctic
  7. paleargid
  8. paleargids
  9. paleass
  10. paleasses
  11. paleate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: palearctic (page history and authors); Palearctic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “palearctic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/palearctic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.