Definition of "heteroclitic" in English

adjective

1. (linguistics) Irregular in inflection.

2. (Indo-European studies) Signifying a nominal stem which alternates between more than one form when declined for grammatical case, particularly in the suffix, most often between *-r- in the strong stem and *-n- in the weak stem(s). Examples of heteroclitic noun stems in Proto-Indo-European include *wod-r/n- (“water”) (nominoaccusative *wódr̥; genitive *udnés; locative *udén) and *yékʷ-r/n- (“liver”) (nominoaccusative *yékʷr̥, genitive *ikʷnés).

3. (microbiology) Pertaining to antibodies that react to a wide variety of antigens.

noun

1. A heteroclitic noun.