Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various single-celled or multicellular organisms of the domain Eukaryota, characterized by cells that contain a distinct membrane-bound nucleus and by the occurrence of DNA transcription inside the nucleus and protein synthesis in the cytoplasm, in contrast to prokaryotes.

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

  • noun an organism with "good" or membrane-bound nuclei having multiple chromosomes; eucaryotes also have other membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria or chloroplasts, within the cytoplasm enclosed by the outer membrane. Such cells are characteristic of all life forms except primitive microorganisms such as bacteria and blue-green algae. Contrasted with prokaryote.

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

  • noun Any of the single-celled or multicellular organisms, of the taxonomic domain Eukaryota, whose cells contain at least one distinct nucleus.

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

  • noun an organism with cells characteristic of all life forms except primitive microorganisms such as bacteria; i.e. an organism with `good' or membrane-bound nuclei in its cells

Etymologies

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

[eu– + Greek karuōtos, having nuts (from karuon, nut; see kar- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

eu- +‎ kary- + -ote

Support

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Examples

  • ‡ The word eukaryote comes from the Greek for “true nucleus.

    eukaryote 2002

  • Am I not right when I say that the simplest eukaryote is a heck of a lot more complex than the archaea is?

    Another Big Example of Reductive Evolution? 2006

  • Am I not right when I say that the simplest eukaryote is a heck of a lot more complex than the archaea is?

    Another Big Example of Reductive Evolution? 2006

  • Guts: All the pieces needed for tyrosine kinase signaling came together in a single celled eukaryote.

    Biomolecular Networks 2009

  • Then, for any extant eukaryote, there exists, not one, but n possible cellular ancestors at the Darwinian threshold (when Eukarya first evolved).

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • His theory follows years of analysis of the Archaea and a comparison with bacterial and eukaryote cell lines.

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • Given that these lines of ancestry do not converge to a point, but pass through an interval of indeterminate width into a communal state, the set of ancestors of any eukaryote will not include a universally shared organismal member (usually referred to the literature as the last eukaryotic common ancestor, LECA).

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • All the pieces needed for tyrosine kinase signaling came together in a single celled eukaryote.

    Biomolecular Networks 2009

  • Paul Nelson: Then, for any extant eukaryote, there exists, not one, but n possible cellular ancestors at the Darwinian threshold (when Eukarya first evolved).

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • Given that these lines of ancestry do not converge to a point, but pass through an interval of indeterminate width into a communal state, the set of ancestors of any eukaryote will not include a universally shared organismal member (usually referred to the literature as the last eukaryotic common ancestor, LECA).

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

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