Pleomorphous vs Polymorphic - What's the difference?
pleomorphous | polymorphic |
relating to polymorphism (any sense), able to have several shapes or forms
* 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
* 1897, Grant Allen, An African Millionaire
* 1996 , Rod Ellis, Data abstraction and program design
(programming, of a function) able to take multiple data types
As adjectives the difference between pleomorphous and polymorphic
is that pleomorphous is having or passing through many different forms while polymorphic is relating to polymorphism (any sense), able to have several shapes or forms.polymorphic
English
Adjective
(-)- I refer to those genera which have sometimes been called "protean" or "polymorphic ," in which the species present an inordinate amount of variation; and hardly two naturalists can agree which forms to rank as species and which as varieties.
- Dr. Beddersley came -- a dapper little man, with pent-house eyebrows, and keen, small eyes, whom I suspected at sight of being Colonel Clay himself in another of his clever polymorphic embodiments.
- Polymorphic redefinition in C++ is achieved by the use of virtual functions.