Definitions

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

  • adjective Having or consisting of many cells.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having several cells; consisting of several cells; many-celled: as, a multicellular organism.

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

  • adjective Consisting of, or having, many cells or more than one cell.

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

  • adjective biology, of an organism That has many cells, often differentiated in function.
  • noun Such an organism

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

  • adjective consisting of many cells

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Guts: Many unicellular eukaryotes were multifunctional cells, doing many different things, however these became specialized in multicellular organisms.

    Biomolecular Networks 2009

  • Many unicellular eukaryotes were multifunctional cells, doing many different things, but specialized in multicellular organisms.

    Biomolecular Networks 2009

  • As any of these authors will agree, the HGT's role is insignificant in multicellular organisms.

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • As any of these authors will agree, the HGT's role is insignificant in multicellular organisms.

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • As any of these authors will agree, the HGT's role is insignificant in multicellular organisms.

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • The more precursors we find, and the more specific they seem to be — so that their functions in multicellular organisms would not be easily replaced by other components — the more difficult it is to accept a non-teleological origin.

    A Tetrahymena Puzzle 2008

  • IOW, if a gene vital in multicellular life forms is present and highly conserved in single-cell life forms (in which it isn't expressed or perform any other vital function), we could conclude that the gene was front-loaded into the genome by a designer of the original genome with the expectation that multicellular life forms would evolve when that gene does get expressed.

    Another predictable argument against front-loading 2007

  • IOW, if a gene vital in multicellular life forms is present and highly conserved in single-cell life forms (in which it isn't expressed or perform any other vital function), we could conclude that the gene was front-loaded into the genome by a designer of the original genome with the expectation that multicellular life forms would evolve when that gene does get expressed.

    Another predictable argument against front-loading 2007

  • For example, this is true for developmental biology and for analysis of the functions of signalling pathways in multicellular organisms.

    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002 2002

  • Since such a creature as the rabbit is formed through the co-operation of a vast multitude of cells, it is called multicellular; the amoeba, on the other hand, is unicellular.

    Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata 1906

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