branchial

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   relating to, resembling, or serving as gills

   Water passes across the fish's branchial surfaces during respiration.

2. 2
   adj

   relating to the embryonic pharyngeal arches, historically called branchial arches

   The surgeon examined a congenital branchial cleft anomaly in the child's neck.

3. 3
   noun

   a gill structure or one of the embryonic arches associated historically with gill development

   The diagram labels each branchial along the side of the embryo.

From New Latin branchialis, based on Latin branchiae, 'gills,' itself borrowed from Greek branchia, the plural of branchion, 'gill.' In vertebrate embryology, branchial arch became an established historical name for structures now often called pharyngeal arches, whether or not they develop into gills.

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