blood fluke

American  

noun

1. a schistosome.

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blood fluke British  

noun

1. any parasitic flatworm, such as a schistosome, that lives in the blood vessels of man and other vertebrates: class Digenea See also trematode

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Etymology

Origin of blood fluke

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

In the early 1980s, an oral drug, praziquantel, became available that could kill blood flukes in one dose with minimal side effects.

From Nature

But as much as a tapeworm or a blood fluke may disgust us, parasites are crucial to the world’s ecosystems.

From New York Times

Gene drives could also be used to help wipe out schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, carried by blood flukes, that affects hundreds of millions of people each year and kills as many as two hundred thousand.

From The New Yorker

The life cycle of a blood fluke is daunting.

From Washington Post

Synteny is maintained with distantly related blood flukes but we find extreme losses of genes and pathways that are ubiquitous in other animals, including 34 homeobox families and several determinants of stem cell fate.

From Nature