multicellular
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of multicellular
Explanation
Something that's multicellular is a complex organism, made up of many cells. Humans are multicellular. While single-celled organisms can't usually be seen without a microscope, you can see most multicelluar organisms with the naked eye. Plants and animals are multicellular — although they all, including humans, start as a single cell that reproduces into many. Multi means "many," and the Latin root of cellular is cellularis, "of little cells," from cella, "small room."
Vocabulary lists containing multicellular
Cell Biology - Middle School
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Cell Biology - High School
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Plants (Botany) - Middle School
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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.
Because fossils of these early multicellular organisms are difficult to find, he studies the chemistry of ancient rocks to identify the environments most likely to have preserved them.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
Anisogamy is one of the most fundamental facts of life: Sexual reproduction is anisogamous in all animals and almost all multicellular plants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The findings, published in Science, offer new insight into how protein systems change over time and how multicellular life developed in these ecologically important bacteria.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 20, 2026
Though Jablonski is more bullish on the survival prospects of unicellular life, there is some comfort for the multicellular among us too.
From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2025
Gene replication must explain how a multicellular organism emerges from a single cell—and errors in replication might elucidate how a spontaneous metabolic illness, or a devastating mental disease, might arise in a previously unaffected family.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
