Definitions

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

  • noun The natural or surgical union of anatomical parts of two organisms, usually involving exchange of blood, as in the development of conjoined twins or in certain transplant operations.
  • noun A temporary suspension of conductivity or excitability in a nerve.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The temporary abolition of conductivity and excitability in a nerve.

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

  • noun The (natural or surgical) union of parts of two organisms (especially of their vascular systems)
  • noun The fusion of two embryos to form conjoined twins

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

para- + -biosis

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Examples

  • This process, called parabiosis, allowed the blood of the young mouse to flow into the body of the old mouse.

    VF Daily 2009

  • Haek6, working against an entirely different conceptual background, had reproduced Owen's phenomenon in chickens by the ingenious method of making a deliberate synchorial parabiosis between chick embryos in the shell.

    Peter Medawar - Nobel Lecture 1964

  • Tolerance unaccompanied by any symptom of runt disease is produced by the injection of embryonic cells or by a natural or artificial parabiosis between embryos, and it leads here to a stable chimerism in which native and foreign cells seem to coexist without the one ousting the other.

    Peter Medawar - Nobel Lecture 1964

  • Less than two years ago, Madonna brought David back to London, and although I can't prove she has engaged in parabiosis, the photograph evidence suggests that she did.

    VF Daily 2009

Comments

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  • Physical union of two embryos or organisms. (from Phrontistery)

    May 25, 2008