Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various one-celled free-living or parasitic protozoans having no definite form and moving by means of pseudopods.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A rhizopod common in fresh water, capable of undergoing many changes of form at will. Same as ameba. See rhizopoda.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology A genus of unicellular protozoa that moves by means of temporary projections called pseudopodia.
  • noun mathematics The graph of the real part of the logarithms of a polynomial equation in complex numbers.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun naked freshwater or marine or parasitic protozoa that form temporary pseudopods for feeding and locomotion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin Amoeba, genus name, from Greek amoibē, change, from ameibein, to change; see mei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἀμοιβή (amoibē, "change"), referring to constantly changing shape of these organisms.

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Examples

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  • JM wonders if an amoeba gets splitting headaches?

    June 19, 2011