Definitions

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

  • noun Biology One of the forms of a polymorphic organism.
  • noun Chemistry A specific crystalline form of a compound that can crystallize in different forms.
  • noun Immunology A polymorphonuclear leukocyte; a neutrophil.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In chem., a substance which crystallizes in two or more forms distinct from each other. See dimorphism and trimorphism.
  • noun In biology, an organism exhibiting or characterized by polymorphism; an individual member of a species or other group which differs from other members of the same group to an unusual degree.

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

  • noun (Crystallog.) A substance capable of crystallizing in several distinct forms; also, any one of these forms. Cf. allomorph.

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

  • noun biology Any organism that shows polymorphism
  • noun chemistry, geology Any substance or mineral that forms different types of crystal

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

  • noun an organism that can assume more than one adult form as in the castes of ants or termites

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

poly- + -morph

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