any of various colonial anthozoans of the subclass Alcyonaria with eight tentacles and other body parts in branches or segments of eight
alcyonarian in American English
(ˌælsiəˈnɛəriən)
noun
1.
any anthozoan coelenterate of the subclass Alcyonaria, as corals and sea anemones, having the tentacles and other body parts in branches or segments of eight
adjective
2.
belonging or pertaining to the Alcyonaria
Word origin
[1875–80; ‹ NL Alcyonari(a) (‹ Gk alkyón(ion) a type of coral named from its resemblance to the nest of the kingfisher (alkyo᷇n) + L -āria-ary) + -an]This word is first recorded in the period 1875–80. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: Diaspora, knockabout, musical chairs, pressure point, weekend-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)