A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1133 entries
ctenophore
Ctenophore is the scientific name for the animals called comb jellies, and the group is its own phylum, as separate from jellyfish as jellyfish are from you. They are almost entirely water, they have no stinging cells, and they swim with eight rows of fused cilia. Only a few hundred species are described, and most of them are difficult to collect intact because they come apart in a net.
Etymology
The word is Greek for comb-bearer, and the silent c is the giveaway that it came in whole from Greek rather than through Latin or French. The same root, meaning a comb, gives the anatomical ctenidium, a gill built like a comb, and ctenoid, describing the fish scales with comb-like teeth along their back edge. English speakers say the word without the c, and it is one of very few English words that begin with that pair.