ciliate

[sil-ee-it, -eyt]

noun

1. Also called ciliophoran. any protozoan of the phylum Ciliophora (or in some classification schemes, class Ciliata), as those of the genera Paramecium, Tetrahymena, Stentor, and Vorticella, having cilia on part or all of the surface.

adjective

1. Also ciliated having cilia.

2. belonging or pertaining to the phylum Ciliophora.

ciliate

/ ˈsɪlɪɪt, -eɪt /

adjective

1. Also: ciliated. possessing or relating to cilia

   a ciliate epithelium

2. of or relating to protozoans of the phylum Ciliophora , which have an outer layer of cilia

noun

1. a protozoan of the phylum Ciliophora

Other Word Forms

• ciliation noun
• ciliately adverb
• multiciliate adjective
• multiciliated adjective
• nonciliate adjective
• nonciliated adjective
• unciliated adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of ciliate¹

1785–95; < New Latin ciliātus, equivalent to cili ( a ) cilia + -ātus -ate ¹

Example Sentences

Instead of studying cells in a lab dish, the scientists used advanced computer modeling to analyze how molecular networks inside ciliate and mammalian cells respond to different patterns of stimulation.

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“To the best of our knowledge, ciliates have never been observed in association with urchin diseases elsewhere,” Hewson and his colleagues wrote in a Science Advances paper published last year.

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The probable culprit is a disease-causing ciliate parasite that brings with it a fast death - perhaps the same one that has wreaked havoc on sea urchin populations in the Caribbean.

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But they did spot traces of tiny single-celled organisms called ciliates, which only showed up in the sick urchins.

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A research team placed Halteria ciliates—a type of protozoan with hairlike organelles found in freshwater worldwide—in a petri dish with only chloroviruses, which infect green algae.

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