English Explanatory Dictionary

habitat

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Conditions suitable for an organism or population of organisms to live.
  2. A range; a place where a species naturally occurs.
  3. A terrestrial or aquatic area distinguished by geographic, abiotic and biotic features, whether entirely natural or semi-natural.
  4. A place in which a person lives.

Pronunciation

/ˈhæb.ɪ.tæt/ [ˈhæb.ɪ.tæʔ] LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-habitat.wav LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-habitat.wav

Word forms

habitat habitats

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin habitatbor. English habitat From Latin habitat (“it dwells, lives”), the 3rd person singular present active indicative form of habitō (“to live or dwell”). In Linnaeus and similar authors, the geographical ranges of species were customarily denoted in Latin by a sentence beginning with "Habitat", e.g. "Habitat in Europa" ("It lives in Europe"), and it thus became the convention to refer to the geographical range as the "habitat". Compare the English derivations of exit, floruit, ignoramus, and tenet from Latin finite verbs reanalyzed as English nouns.

Related words

habitable

Derived words

agrohabitat habitative habitat loss habitat pole interhabitat intrahabitat macrohabitat megahabitat mesohabitat microhabitat multihabitat nonhabitat palaeohabitat paleohabitat rabbitat subhabitat
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