tardigrade

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɑɹdɪˌɡɹeɪd/
• Rhymes: -eɪd
• Hyphenation: tar‧di‧grade

From Latin tardigradus (“slowly stepping”), from tardus (“slow”) + gradior (“step, walk”)

tardigrade (comparative more tardigrade, superlative most tardigrade)

1. Sluggish; moving slowly.
   • 1850, Joses Badcock, “Botany; or, Phytology”, in Poems, volume 1, page 67:

     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.

   • 1863, George Eliot, Romola:

     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.

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

     In sorrow, its voice is tardigrade but loud, dragging time at a snail's pace before our eyes.

• tardigradous

From New Latin Tardigrada.

tardigrade (plural tardigrades)

1. (zoology) A member of the animal phylum Tardigrada.
2. Sloth.

• (one of Tardigrada): water bear

• tardigrade at OneLook Dictionary Search
• tardigrade in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

tardigrade f pl

1. feminine plural of tardigrado