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protonym

protonym noun: the first legitimate name of a taxon, on which the currently accepted name is based.

Noun

protonym (plural protonyms)

  1. The first legitimate name of a taxon, on which the currently accepted name is based.
    • The protonym of Macroscyphus appears to be Nees von Esenbeck's (1817) [genus] Peziza ...1968, Mien A. Rifai, The Australasian Pezizales in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
    • Protonyms form the name for later revised opinions on a taxon concept as implicitly or explicitly circumscribed in a subsequent publication...2005, Bertram Ludäscher, Louiqa Raschid, Data integration in the life sciences
  2. (uncommon, prescriptive) The first/original entity after which another entity is named without the entities being related. If the entities are related, then the original entity is the eponym of the subsequent entities.

Forms of protonym

pluralprotonyms

Origin of protonym

From proto- + -onym.

Questions about protonym

What does protonym mean?
Protonym means the first legitimate name of a taxon, on which the currently accepted name is based.
What part of speech is protonym?
Protonym is a noun.
What is the plural of protonym?
The plural of protonym is protonyms.

Words near protonym in the dictionary

  1. protonosphere
  2. protonospheres
  3. protonotaries
  4. protonotary
  5. protons
  6. protonym
  7. protonymph
  8. protonymphal
  9. protonymphon
  10. protonymphons
  11. protonymphs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protonym (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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