Definition of "branchiopod" []

• Any of various aquatic crustaceans of the class Branchiopoda, such as the fairy shrimp and water flea, characterized by a segmented body and flattened, leaflike thoracic appendages. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Tadpole shrimp are large branchiopod crustaceans that occur in arctic Canada and on the prairies."
• "In short, she was a branchiopod, to be vulgarly precise, a water-flea."