animalculist

English

Etymology

From animalcule +‎ -ist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/

Noun

animalculist (plural animalculists)

1. (now historical) A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism. [from 18th c.]
2. (obsolete) Someone who studies animalcules. [19th c.]
   • 1882, Popular Science Monthly Volume 22, Sketch of Matthias Jacob Schleiden

     All at once a botanist, already celebrated, proclaimed that he had seen the embryo forming in the grain of pollen and penetrating the ovule with the pollenical tube. This unexpected animalculist was Schleiden.

Translations

believer in the theory of animalculism

• Portuguese: animalculista m or f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

someone who studies animalcules

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• French: ^{(please verify)} animalculiste (fr)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Adjective

animalculist (comparative more animalculist, superlative most animalculist)

1. (now historical) Pertaining to animalculism. [from 19th c.]
   • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society 2016, p. 217:

     Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception.