From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishphylumphy‧lum /ˈfaɪləm/ noun (plural phyla /-lə/) [countable] technicalHBH one of the large groups into which scientists divide plants, animals, and languages → species
Examples from the Corpus
phylum• B A key to an animal phylum of your choice.• Molluscs Molluscs belong to the largest phylum in the animal kingdom and are a very varied group of animals.• But what holds true within one phylum may well hold true across them.• Once a definitive picture of it was produced, it was given its own phylum.• The geological record of the phylum is accordingly excellent.• The phylum at the present is dominated by its more advanced members - the vertebrates.• To identify any animal properly, the first stage is to determine to which phylum it belongs.• One whole phylum of creatures, the rotifers, seem to fit into no known evolutionary tree at all.Origin phylum (1800-1900) Modern Latin Greek phylon “tribe, race” 