animalcule

English

Etymology

From Late Latin animalculum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ænɪˈmælkjuːl/

  • Audio (UK)

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Noun

animalcule (plural animalcules)

1. (obsolete) A small animal. [16th-20th c.]
   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎^[1]:

     'Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?'

2. A microscopic aquatic animal or protozoan. [from 17th c.]
   • 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead:

     If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent.

3. (now historical) A spermatozoon. [from 17th c.]
   • 2001, David M Friedman, A Mind of its Own, Robert Hale 2009, p. 60:

     Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw ‘all manner of great and small vessels […].’

Synonyms

• animalculum

Hyponyms

• eye animalcule
• globe animalcule
• rotifer or wheel animalcule
• paramecium or slipper animalcule
• stentor or trumpet animalcule
• peritrich or bell animalcule
• heliozoa or sun animalcule
• amoeba or proteus animalcule
• vegetalcule

Translations

microscopic animal, protozoan

• Catalan: animàlcul m
• Finnish: alkueläin (fi)
• French: animalcule (fr) m
• Ido: animaleto (io)

• Portuguese: animálculo m
• Spanish: animálculo (es) m
• Volapük: nimil

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French

Noun

animalcule m (plural animalcules)

1. animalcule

Further reading

• “animalcule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.