Tadpole ★★½ 2002 (PG-13)

You know you've hit a chord when your movie's title has been adopted as a verb (tad-poling) for the trend of older women cruising younger men. Precocious, prep-schooler Oscar Grubman (Stanford) comes home to Manhattan to spend the holidays with his remarried dad (Ritter) and his new stepmom (Weaver), on whom he promptly develops a crush. Soon the unrequited love for his new mum, the aptly named Eve, is soothed instead by her cradle-robbing best friend (a show-stealing Neuwirth). Stanford shines, even through the drab digital camerawork, in this witty, new millennium “Graduate.” 77m/C VHS, DVD . US Aaron Stanford, Sigourney Weaver, John Ritter, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Iler, Peter Appel, Adam LeFevre; D: Gary Winick; W: Heather McGowan, Niels Mueller; C: Hubert Taczanowski.

tadpole Aquatic larva of a toad or frog; it has feathery gills and a finned tail, and lacks lungs and legs. The tadpoles of most species are herbivores, feeding on algae and other aquatic plants. During metamorphosis legs grow, the tail reabsorbs, and internal lungs replace gills.

tad·pole / ˈtadˌpōl/ • n. the tailed aquatic larva of an amphibian (frog, toad, newt, or salamander), breathing through gills and lacking legs until its later stages of development.

tadpole XV (taddepol). f. tadde TOAD + pol POLL, as if ‘a toad that is all head’.

tadpole The round-bodied, long-tailed larva of an anuran (Anura). The term is also used for other larvae with this form (e.g. those of sea squirts and salps).