taxonym

Noun

taxonym (plural taxonyms)

1. A word used for classification purposes, that is, one that makes up part of a taxonomy; a name or label for a taxon or clade
   • If a single phyletic series alone is known it is then covered by a single taxonym (however it may be artificially segmented into subsidiary taxa); but if collateral branches are later found, or reconstructed, or attached by the systematist — branches each one of which includes the ancestor — there...1971 June, Thomas Neville George, “Systematics in palaeontology: President's anniversary address 1969”, in Journal of the Geological Society, volume 127, number 3, →DOI, pages 226–227
   • Dialect has by now been used in so many senses that any definition will automatically be too narrow: for what we have here is a pre-scientific, folk taxonym (though a very useful taxonym) that is incapable of precise definition.1973, Babel - Volumes 19-21, page 195
2. A hyponym that differs only by properties that are highlighted in the corresponding hypernym.
   • Ash-blonde and strawberry blonde are satisfactory taxonyms of blonde, but they are by no means the optimal subcategories of BLONDE.2004, William Croft, D. Alan Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics, →ISBN, page 149
   • They conclude that a good taxonym must have as its core a specification of the core of the hyponym.2009, William C. Ritchie, Tej K. Bhatia -, The New Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, →ISBN, page 201