[f. SWIMMER + -ET.] An abdominal limb or appendage of a crustacean, adapted for swimming; a swimming-foot, pleopod.
1838. Westwood, Entomologist’s Text Book, 123. The Trilobites have the terminal segment of the body entire, and not furnished with lateral swimmerets, as in the Sphæromæ.
1840. Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 416. The second family of Decapoda,—Decapoda Macrura…,—is distinguished by having at the extremity of the tail, on each side, appendages, ordinarily forming a swimmeret [orig. F. nageoire].
1874. A. Wilson, Stud. Guide Zool., 96. All the varied segments and appendages of the lobster—eyes, feelers, jaws, legs, and swimmerets—are merely modifications of a common structural plan.
1880. Huxley, Crayfish, i. 20. Attached to the sternal side of every ring of the abdomen of the female there is a pair of limbs, called swimmerets.
