Word.ws English Dictionary

species name

species name noun: a scientific name at the rank of species, with two terms: the generic name (or generic epithet, the genus of the species) and the specific name (a term used only in zoology, never in botany, for the second part of a binomial) or the specific epithet (the term always used in botany, which can also be used in zoology).

Noun

species name (plural species names)

  1. A scientific name at the rank of species, with two terms: the generic name (or generic epithet, the genus of the species) and the specific name (a term used only in zoology, never in botany, for the second part of a binomial) or the specific epithet (the term always used in botany, which can also be used in zoology).
    • Meronyms: genus name, generic name, generic epithet; specific epithet, species epithet, specific name
  2. specific epithet, species epithet, specific name
    • Every animal that has been described by scientists has a scientific name, which consists of both a genus and species name. [...] The genus name is capitalized and given first, and the species name is given next [...]1983, Richard E. White, Peterson Field Guides: Beetles. A Field Guide to the Beetles of North America, page 54
    • According to this system, each organism, whether plant or animal, bears two names : the first is generic name and second is the species name. [...] For example, the scientific name of modern man is Homo sapiens sapiens, where Homo is the generic name, and sapiens is the species name.2006, V.B. Rastogi, B. Kishore, A Complete Course in ISC Biology. Vol I for Class XI, Unit II p. 7

Synonyms of species name

Forms of species name

pluralspecies names

Questions about species name

What does species name mean?
Species name means a scientific name at the rank of species, with two terms: the generic name (or generic epithet, the genus of the species) and the specific name (a term used only in zoology, never in botany, for the second part of a binomial) or the specific epithet (the term always used in botany, which can also be used in zoology).
What part of speech is species name?
Species name is a noun.
What is the plural of species name?
The plural of species name is species names.

Words near species name in the dictionary

  1. species dysphoria
  2. species epithet
  3. species epithets
  4. species flock
  5. species group
  6. species name
  7. species names
  8. species problem
  9. species problems
  10. species swarm
  11. species-ism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: species name (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: “species name.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/species_name. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.