a. (sb.) [a. F. tardigrade (a. 1615 in Godef., Compl.), or ad. L. tardigrad-us walking slowly, f. L. tardus slow + -gradus stepping, going.]
1. Walking or going slowly; slow-paced.
1623. Cockeram, Tardigrade, a slow goer.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Tardigrade, that goeth slow, or hath a slow pace.
1852. Mundy, Our Antipodes (1857), 185. The Deborah proved a marine hackney-coach of the most tardigrade order.
1875. W. Houghton, Sk. Brit. Insects, 145. The Meloë … a bloated, tardigrade, wingless beetle upon the meadow.
b. fig. Sluggish in thought or action, unprogressive, ‘slow-going.’
1883. Pall Mall G., 28 Dec., 4/2. Even in our tardigrade West Country the farmer has begun to discover,… that he, too, is an economical power.
2. Zool. a. Belonging to the sub-order (Tardigrada) or family (Bradypodidæ) of edentate mammals, comprising the sloths.
1799. Carlisle in Phil. Trans., XC. 101. The habits of life among the tardigrade animals, give occasion for the long continued contraction of some muscles in their limbs.
1893. W. H. Hudson, Natur. La Plata, xxii. 350. Tardigrade mammals of arboreal habits.
b. Belonging to the group Tardigrada of Arachnids, comprising the minute aquatic animals called water-bears or bear-animalcules.
1847–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., IV. 415/1. Doyere states that he has found zoospores in the tardigrade Infusoria.
1891. Cent. Dict., s.v., Tardigrade rotifors [obs.], the Tardigrada Arctisca; bear-animalcules.
B. sb. a. An edentate mammal of the sub-order Tardigrada; a sloth.
1827. Griffith, trans. Cuvier’s Anim. K., III. 251. The tardigrades will form the first class [of the Edentata]…. Their name is derived from their excessive slowness.
1835. Kirby, Hab. & Inst. Anim., II. xvii. 208. The last family … in the present Order [Edentates] is very well distinguished by the name of Tardigrades.
b. An arachnid of the group Tardigrada; a water-bear.
1860. All Year Round, No. 43. 387. The tardigrades dwell in the same localities as the rotifers.
1872. Darwin, in Life & Lett., III. 169. On this view, a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot believe.
