[syn: morphology, geomorphology]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Morphology \Mor*phol"o*gy\, n. [Gr. morfh` form + -logy: cf. F.
morphologie.]
1. (Biol.) That branch of biology which deals with the
structure of animals and plants, treating of the forms of
organs and describing their varieties, homologies, and
metamorphoses. See Tectology, and Promorphology.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Biol.) The form and structure of an organism.
[PJC]
3. (Linguistics) The branch of linguistics which studies the
patterns by which words are formed from other words,
including inflection, compounding, and derivation.
[PJC]
4. Specifically: The study of the patterns of inflection of
words or word classes in any given language; the study of
the patterns in which morphemes combine to form words, and
the rules for combination; morphemics; as, the morphology
of Spanish verbs; also, the inflection patterns
themselves.
[PJC]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
morphology
n 1: the branch of biology that deals with the structure of
animals and plants
2: studies of the rules for forming admissible words
3: the admissible arrangement of sounds in words [syn:
morphology, sound structure, syllable structure, word
structure]
4: the branch of geology that studies the characteristics and
configuration and evolution of rocks and land forms [syn:
morphology, geomorphology]