Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To enclose in or as if in a cyst.
  • intransitive verb To take the form of or become enclosed in a cyst.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To inclose or become inclosed in a cyst or vesicle.

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

  • transitive verb To inclose in a cyst.

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

  • verb rare, transitive To enclose within a cyst.
  • verb rare, intransitive To be enclosed within a cyst.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "I wish you would encyst," said Flor cheerfully, "preferably with something cancerous."

    A Corridor in the Asylum 2010

  • The glochidia then attach to a vertebrate host in which the encyst and transform, protected and fed by the vertebrate tissue, into an adult.

    Mollusca 2007

  • After feeding for 2 to 36 hours, the glochidia encyst.

    Mollusca 2007

  • The ghosts in Countermeasure -- Arne and Sjana thought it might rise so high it would punch into the Transcend, encyst the Blight right where it sits ....

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • This parasite may encyst in the wall of the gizzard.

    Common Diseases of Farm Animals R. A. Craig

  • "Six months for the projectile to encyst before the knee can be opened safely."

    A Farewell To Arms Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961 1929

  • The foreign bodies must be allowed to encyst and the synovial fluid will re-form.

    A Farewell To Arms Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961 1929

  • It's merely that Time has been trying to encyst what it can not absorb.

    The Prairie Child Arthur Stringer 1912

  • This condition is, perhaps, foreshadowed in the encyst -

    The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays John Joly 1895

  • And we naturally expect that a man of wealth, with all the honors belonging to any one person, should take on a comforting accumulation of adipose, and encyst himself in the conventionalities of church, state and society.

    Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 Elbert Hubbard 1885

Comments

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  • “Nevertheless all three of these cards appeared completely genuine, sharp-edged rectangles two thumbs by three, their complex labyrinths of gold encysted in some remarkable substance that was almost indestructible, yet nearly invisible.” (“Cards” are the currency in the Whorl.)

    —The Book of the Long Sun, Gene Wolfe

    September 29, 2009