Word.ws English Dictionary

protologist

protologist noun: the first person to describe a new species. Also the misconstruction of proctologist.

Noun

protologist (plural protologists)

  1. The first person to describe a new species.
    • The allotype need not be described by the protologist (first describer) ; it can be contained in the original as well as in any subsequent description by other authors.1911, Annals of the Entomological Society of America - Volume 4, page 208
    • Therefore, to rectify this long standing error, we are compelled to expunge Fairmaire's name as the author of the name and substitute Felsche as the true protologist.1955, Transactions of the American Entomological Society

Also used as

protologist is also the misconstruction of proctologist.

Forms of protologist

pluralprotologists

Origin of protologist

From protolog(ue) + -ist.

See proctologist.

Questions about protologist

What does protologist mean?
Protologist means the first person to describe a new species.
What part of speech is protologist?
Protologist is a noun.
What is the plural of protologist?
The plural of protologist is protologists.

Words near protologist in the dictionary

  1. protological
  2. protologically
  3. protologies
  4. protologism
  5. protologisms
  6. protologist
  7. protologistic
  8. protologists
  9. protologs
  10. protologue
  11. protologues

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protologist (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.

Last updated:

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