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
By this name it has been called until very lately; Fries accepting it, but noting that the plasmodium, for him at least, was yellow!
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
First the plasmodia enter the oxygen-bearing red blood cells.
From Time Magazine Archive
We may well wonder: Why did not Laveran simply recognize those sexual forms, and why did he not seek for the period of conjugation in the plasmodia, which were animal micro-organisms?
From Spontaneous Activity in Education by Montessori, Maria
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.
