Meaning & use

taxonomy

noun·Academic

A system for classifying things, especially organisms, into ordered groups based on shared characteristics.

See it in a sentence

Scientists updated the taxonomy of the beetle family after new genetic evidence emerged.

The company built a taxonomy of customer complaints to track recurring problems more easily.

A note on using this word

Originally a biology term for classifying living things, now widely applied to any structured classification system.

Words with a similar meaning

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