Animalcule

Quick meaning: Animalcule is a noun meaning (zoology, archaic) A microscopic aquatic animal, including protozoa and rotifers.

Meaning

(zoology, archaic) A microscopic aquatic animal, including protozoa and rotifers.

More Meanings

1. (physiology, historical) A sperm cell or spermatozoon; also, the embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state.
2. (obsolete) A small animal.

Example Sentences

Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?

Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head: […]

If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent.

[Antonie van] Leeuwenhoek's most mysterious finding was yet to come, however. Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw / all manner of great and small vessels, so various and so numerous that I do not doubt that they be nerves, arteries and veins. …

Word Forms

• animalcules

Synonyms for animalcule

Depending on context, synonyms include animalcula, animalculum.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include animalculum, infusorial, infusory, proteus, itch, slipper.

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