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''tardigrade'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708194133-00-⌔

tardigrade - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

tardigrade (comparative more tardigrade, superlative most tardigrade)

  • Sluggish; moving slowly.
    • ✤ Each tendril ending in a perfect claw,/Obeys the whole routine of Nature’s law;/Transforms each sinus to a sylvan shade,/Though p’rhaps its force is rather tardigrade.1
    • ✤ He ran on into the piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp of feet behind him, for the other two prisoners had been released, and the soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, but not very resolutely attacked, by the people.2
    • ✤ In sorrow, its voice is tardigrade but loud, dragging time at a snail’s pace before our eyes.3

Noun

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tardigrade (plural tardigrades)

  • (zoology) A member of the animal phylum Tardigrada.
    • ✤ Synonym: water bear
  • (obsolete) A sloth, a neotropical mammal of suborder Folivora (syn. Tardigrada).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈtɑɹdɪˌɡɹeɪd/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪd
  • Hyphenation: tar‧di‧grade

Etymology 1

From Latin tardigradus (“slowly stepping”), from tardus (“slow”) + gradior (“step, walk”), equivalent to Latin tardus +‎ -i- +‎ -grade.

Etymology 2

From translingual Tardigrada.

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

  1. 1850, Joses Badcock, “Botany; or, Phytology”, in Poems, volume 1, page 67: ↩

  2. 1863, George Eliot, Romola: ↩

  3. 2001, Richard S. Conde, “The Metronome”, in Century One, →ISBN, page 92: ↩

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