Definitions

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

  • noun A multinucleate, often large mass of protoplasm that moves and ingests food and is characteristic of the vegetative phase of plasmodial slime molds.
  • noun Any of various protozoans of the genus Plasmodium, which includes the parasites that cause malaria.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Protoplasm of protozoans in sheets, masses, or comparatively large quantities, as formed by the plasmodiate members of the Protozoa.
  • noun A definite quantity of Plasmodium, or the Plasmodium of given individual organisms.
  • noun The naked multinucleated mass of protoplasm, exhibiting amœboid movement, which makes up the entire plant-body of the slime-molds (Myxomycetes) during the vegetative period of their existence. See Myxomycetes, slime-mold, Fuligo, 2, and Olpidium

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

  • noun (Biol.) A jellylike mass of free protoplasm, without any union of amœboid cells, and endowed with life and power of motion.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A naked mobile mass of protoplasm, formed by the union of several amœbalike young, and constituting one of the stages in the life cycle of Mycetozoa and other low organisms.

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

  • noun biology A mass of cytoplasm, containing many nuclei, created by the aggregation of amoeboid cells of slime molds during their vegetative phase.

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

  • noun multinucleate sheet of cytoplasm characteristic of some stages of such organisms as slime molds
  • noun parasitic protozoan of the genus Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans

Etymologies

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

[New Latin Plasmōdium, genus name : plasm(o)– + Greek -ōdēs, resembling; see collodion.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Plasmodium, from Latin plasma.

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