Definitions

1. noun

A polytomy is a fork or division in a genealogical or phylogenetic tree where three or more descendants diverge from a common ancestor.

“The new study of genetic inheritance revealed a complex polotmy in the family’s ancestry.”

2. noun

In linguistics, a polytomy is an ambiguous or unresolved node in a branching diagram or tree, where more than two branches meet at the same point.

“The grammarian struggled to identify the correct polytomy in the sentence to provide accurate part-of-speech tagging.”