host-specific
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of host-specific
First recorded in 1965–70
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.
Their work supports earlier findings, based on DNA markers and crossing experiments which suggested that F. xylarioides is a species complex containing distinct, host-specific populations.
From Science Daily • Dec. 5, 2024
And one of the most abundant milkweed-visiting aphids, the nonnative oleander aphid, is host-specific, meaning it doesn’t eat other plants.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 8, 2023
Viruses are host-specific because they only can attach to and infect cells of certain organisms.
From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022
To investigate host-specific adaptation of parasites to human and chimpanzee hosts, we compared P. malariae to P. malariae-like.
From Nature • Jan. 24, 2017
“Genetic evidence for female host-specific races of the common cuckoo.”
From New York Times • Jun. 2, 2010
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.
