the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
n. The history of genealogical development; the race history of an animal or vegetable type; the historic exolution of the phylon or tribe, in distinction from ontogeny, or the development of the individual organism, and from biogenesis, or life development generally.
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n. Same as phytogeny.
n. The doctrine of the generation of plants.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
n. (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word Usage
"The third version, unlike the more idealistic first and second vesions, intoroduces terms such as the unconscious, inhibition, and crisis, contains a crucial section on mesmerism, and is structured around the trauma of onto - and phylogenesis."