Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The turning or bending movement of an organism or a part of an organism in a particular direction in response to an external stimulus such as light or gravity.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In biology, growth, bending, orientation, or locomotion of organisms, or of parts of organisms, in relation to external agents.
- noun In a stricter use, the growing or bending of organisms, or of parts of organisms, in relation to external agents.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Physiol.) Modification of the direction of growth, caused by some external influence, such as light; -- sometimes used for motion of an organism toward or away from an external stimulus, more properly called
taxis .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun biology the
turning of anorganism inresponse to astimulus , eithertowards oraway from the stimulus - noun virology viral tropism, or which type of
tissue supports a certainvirus
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an involuntary orienting response; positive or negative reaction to a stimulus source
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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I don’t see how tropism is connected to suffering. allqsallthetime Says:
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Such a turning in response to a stimulus is called a tropism (troh'pizm; "turning" G).
The Human Brain Asimov, Isaac 1963
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A profound study of the motions of the Infusoria and a very penetrating criticism of the idea of tropism have been made recently by
Evolution créatrice. English Henri Bergson 1900
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Aboody and her colleagues were the first to demonstrate in 2000 the inherent propensity of neural stem cells to home in on invasive tumor cells, also known as tropism, even migrating from the opposite side of the brain or across the blood-brain barrier.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
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This 'tropism' has been classically exhibited in the events surrounding the recent and intensely upsetting Flotilla incidents.
Qanta Ahmed, MD: Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View 2010
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This 'tropism' has been classically exhibited in the events surrounding the recent and intensely upsetting Flotilla incidents.
Qanta Ahmed, MD: Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View 2010
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This 'tropism' has been classically exhibited in the events surrounding the recent and intensely upsetting Flotilla incidents.
Qanta Ahmed, MD: Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View MD Qanta Ahmed 2010
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It would, therefore, be a misconception to speak of tropism as of reflexes, since tropisms are reactions of the organism as a whole, while reflexes are reactions of isolated segments.
Manhood of Humanity. Alfred Korzybski 1914
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It is impossible to understand in this case, firstly, how a mutation could cause the eyes to be divided and doubly adapted to two different optic conditions, and, secondly, how at the same time a convenient 'tropism' should occur which caused the animal to swim with its eyes half in and half out of water.
Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897
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This 'tropism' has been classically exhibited in the events surrounding the recent and intensely upsetting Flotilla incidents.
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Each variant can have different affinity, known as tropism, to tissues and organs within the body; for reasons yet unexplained Omicron has less tropism to the olfactory bulb, the neurons at the base of the brain specialized in smell.
What do we know about Covid’s impact on the brain? | Eric Topol Eric Topol 2022
jwjarvis commented on the word tropism
hacker tropisms for science fiction, music.
February 11, 2011