parasitize

American  

[par-uh-si-tahyz, -sahy-] / ˈpær ə sɪˌtaɪz, -saɪ- /

especially British, parasitise

verb (used with object)

parasitized, parasitizing

1. to live on (a host) as a parasite.

---

parasitize British  

/ -saɪ-, ˈpærəsɪˌtaɪz /

verb

1. to infest or infect with parasites

2. to live on (another organism) as a parasite

---

Other Word Forms

• unparasitized adjective

Etymology

Origin of parasitize

First recorded in 1885–90; parasite + -ize

Example Sentences

The spiders they parasitize are only a few millimeters long.

From Science Daily • Jan. 28, 2026

Some kinds benefit the soil, but others parasitize crops, inflicting more than $100 billion in losses worldwide each year.

From Science Magazine • May 25, 2023

But many parasitologists like Wood focus on multicellular metazoans: animals that encompass hundreds of thousands of species, including up to 300,000 different types of worms that parasitize vertebrates alone.

From Scientific American • May 18, 2022

The birds sometimes raise their eggs in cooperative groups and sometimes parasitize other species’ nests.

From Nature • Feb. 24, 2019

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 Johnston, Richard F.