nidus

American  

[nahy-duhs] / ˈnaɪ dəs /

noun

• nidi
  plural

1. a nest, especially one in which insects, spiders, etc., deposit their eggs.

2. a place or point in an organism where a germ or other organism can develop or breed.

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nidus British  

/ ˈnaɪdəs /

noun

1. the nest in which insects or spiders deposit their eggs

2. pathol a focus of infection

3. a cavity in which plant spores develop

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nidal
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• nidi
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of nidus

1735–45; < Latin nīdus nest

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nidus nidi

Among them, occasionally, an underlying structural abnormality in the brain can be the nidus for electrical disarray.

From New York Times ● Sep. 25, 2019

The S.D.P., however, had the advantage of being able to coalesce around the nidus of a small, old, still breathing third party, the Liberals.

From Time Magazine Archive

It will not be difficult to induce me to give up the theory of the growth of shells, without their being the nidus of animals.

From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 by Thomas Jefferson Randolph

This excoriated, scabby area contains crowds of staphylococci which find a nidus here, where the copious tear-flow down the nostrils has excoriated and irritated the skin.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" by Various

There is a nidus just back of a fleshy process in its throat, corresponding to your own tonsils, which produces a crystal much as your Terran oyster secretes a pearl.

From Traders Risk by Roger D. Aycock

We could fill a page with marvellous shots quos nidi et quorum pars, etc.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 24, October, 1859 by Various

These appearances consisted of long tubes passing nearly perpendicularly through the clay and terminating in receptacles or nidi, each tube leading to a separate receptacle.

From Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology by Various

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