any jawless eel-like aquatic vertebrate of the superclass Agnatha, which includes the lampreys and hagfishes
adjective
2.
of, relating to, or belonging to the superclass Agnatha
See also cyclostome
Word origin
C19: from New Latin agnatha, from a-1 + Greek gnathos jaw
agnathan in American English
(ˈæɡnəθən)
noun
1.
any member of the vertebrate class Agnatha
adjective
2.
agnathous
Word origin
[agnath(a) + -an]-an is a suffix occurring originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nounsdenoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan), and now productively forming English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.Attached to geographical names, it denotes provenance or membership (American; Chicagoan), the latter sense now extended to membership in social classes, religious denominations,etc., in adjectives formed from various kinds of noun bases (Episcopalian; pedestrian; Puritan; Republican) and membership in zoological taxa (acanthocephalan; crustacean). Attached to personal names, it has the additional senses “contemporary with” (Elizabethan; Jacobean) or “proponent of” (Hegelian; Freudian) the person specified by the noun base. It also occurs in a set of personal nouns,mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works withthe referent of the base noun (comedian; grammarian; historian; theologian)