animalcule
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Late Latin animalculum.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
animalcule (plural animalcules)
- (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?'
- 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.
- (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 […].’
- 2001, David M Friedman, A Mind of its Own, Robert Hale 2009, p. 60:
Synonyms[edit]
Hyponyms[edit]
- 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[edit]
microscopic animal, protozoan
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French[edit]
Noun[edit]
animalcule m (plural animalcules)
Further reading[edit]
- “animalcule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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- en:Lifeforms
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