plasmodium
Americannoun
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Biology. an ameboid, multinucleate mass or sheet of cytoplasm characteristic of some stages of organisms, as of myxomycetes or slime molds.
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any parasitic protozoan of the genus Plasmodium, causing malaria in humans.
noun
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an amoeboid mass of protoplasm, containing many nuclei: a stage in the life cycle of certain organisms, esp the nonreproductive stage of the slime moulds
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any parasitic sporozoan protozoan of the genus Plasmodium, such as P. falciparum and P. vivax, which cause malaria
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A mass of protoplasm having many cell nuclei but not divided into separate cells. It is formed by the combination of many amoeba-like cells and is characteristic of the active, feeding phase of certain slime molds.
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Any of various single-celled organisms (called protozoans) that exist as parasites in vertebrate animals, one of which causes malaria.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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Nouns
Etymology
Origin of plasmodium
From New Latin, dating back to 1870–75; see origin at plasm-, -ode 1, -ium
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The working group also discovered that the autofluorescent artemisinin-coumarin hybrids are able to destroy a certain drug-resistant malaria pathogen called plasmodium palcifarum.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 20, 2023
The RTS,S vaccine targets the one that is most deadly and most common in Africa: plasmodium falciparum.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2021
Gates wants to see the plasmodium at Appomattox.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 28, 2015
Scientists at GlaxoSmithKline began working in 1987 on a vaccine that targeted the most severe of the four strains of malaria, plasmodium falciparum.
From US News ● Aug. 14, 2015
At other times the plasmodium assumes the shape of a flat cushion or plate, which then subdivides into minute polygonal segments.
From The North American Slime-Moulds A Descriptive List of All Species of Myxomycetes Hitherto Reported from the Continent of North America, with Notes on Some Extra-Limital Species by MacBride, Thomas H. (Thomas Huston)
The pulsating blobs of Texas-backyard mystery are plasmodia — multinucleate masses that course the forest until conditions are just right for them to form the colorful fruiting bodies full of spores.
From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2020
Neither plant nor animal, these single-cell amoebas feed on bacteria but aggregate when their food source becomes scarce to form glossy, bulbous, shape-shifting multicellular plasmodia that develop fruiting bodies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2015
Malaria is fought by fighting mosquitoes or by interrupting the plasmodia life-cycle at some point.
From Time Magazine Archive
No known chemical kills plasmodia in the form mosquitoes deliver to man.
From Time Magazine Archive
The species is not common in the upper Mississippi valley, but can be obtained in quantity where once it appears, as the plasmodia are profuse.
From The North American Slime-Moulds A Descriptive List of All Species of Myxomycetes Hitherto Reported from the Continent of North America, with Notes on Some Extra-Limital Species by MacBride, Thomas H. (Thomas Huston)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
