tardigrade \TAHR-di-greyd\,
adjective:
1. Slow in pace or movement.
2. Belonging or pertaining to the phylum Tardigrada.
noun:
1. Also called bear animalcule, water bear.
Any microscopic, chiefly herbivorous invertebrate of the phylum Tardigrada, living in water, on mosses, lichens, etc.
The days were long and boring as we walked a continuous almost tardigrade pace around several large buildings, again with empty carbines.
-- Stafford O. Chenevert, "Amber Waves of Grain"
…the soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, but not very resolutely attacked, by the people.
-- George Eliot, "Romola"
He rolls tardigrade, to a stop on a shoulder, stooped in sand, in its pretense as it doesn't exist and there's only desert…
-- Joshua Cohen, "Witz"
Related to the common word tardy, tardigrade comes from the Latin word tardigradus meaning "slow-paced."
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