parasitize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
-
to infest or infect with parasites
-
to live on (another organism) as a parasite
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of parasitize
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:
“In order to fully hijack your ability to reason, I need to parasitize both your cognitive or thinking system, as well as your emotional affective system.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
The spiders they parasitize are only a few millimeters long.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 28, 2026
To understand orca parasites, she had been trying to study organisms that parasitize salmon, a favorite orca prey that might pass the parasites along to the whales.
From Science Magazine ● May 7, 2024
As science journalist Rachel Nuwer writes, as many as 40 to 50 percent of all animal species are parasites, and almost every other species has at least one parasite that has evolved to parasitize it.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 19, 2022
Two roundworms were found to parasitize the guts of the salamanders; the parasitism looks to be benign.
From Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii by Richard F. Johnston
“But when the nests were parasitized, survival was over six times greater in urban nestlings compared to non-urban nestlings,” Knutie says.
From National Geographic ● Feb. 15, 2024
Surprisingly, more than 1400 of these wormy genes closely matched genes from the very mantises they parasitized.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 19, 2023
The female wasp punctured the egg, laid her own egg inside and then searched for a location to bury the parasitized egg.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2023
Healed wounds aren’t uncommon among multiple types of fish captured in surveys, suggesting it’s possible to survive being parasitized.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 23, 2022
The effects on the host are confined to the parasitized cells.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various
Nematodes are among the planet's most abundant animals, "free-living" in water, soil and the Earth's crust in addition to parasitizing a large collection of plant and animal species.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 6, 2024
Yeah, it's this organism whose lifecycle depends on parasitizing other organisms, and it can infect pretty much all mammals.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022
It is also terrifying in part because it preys on caregivers and loved ones, parasitizing the humanity of those who care for and come into close contact with the ill.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2014
That makes it easy to forget that more than 1,300 species hang in forests year-round, parasitizing thousands of tree species around the world.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 21, 2012
It's always been there, anchored in the same cells, parasitizing the same sensitive tissues that carry our olfactory nerve endings, numbing them and crippling them, making them practically useless as sensory organs.
From The Coffin Cure by Alan Edward Nourse
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.
