Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of numerous eukaryotic organisms that are not fungi, plants, or animals and are chiefly unicellular or colonial. Protists that are multicellular do not have cells differentiated into tissues. The protists include the protozoans, certain algae, oomycetes, and slime molds.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to the Protista, or having their characters.
- noun Any member of the Protista.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) One of the Protista.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun microbiology Any of the
eukaryotic unicellular organisms includingprotozoans ,slime molds and somealgae ; historically grouped into thekingdom Protoctista .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun free-living or colonial organisms with diverse nutritional and reproductive modes
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word protist.
Examples
-
The Toxoplasma bacteria protist is shed in cat feces, which are eaten by rats; infected rats become fearless in the presence of cats, which makes them easier to catch, which, in turn spreads the disease to new cats.
Boing Boing: January 22, 2006 - January 28, 2006 Archives 2006
-
They discovered a heterotrophic algae, in reality a protist, that is
Clean Break 2010
-
They discovered a heterotrophic algae, in reality a protist, that is
Clean Break 2010
-
Simpson (1961: 117, 165) emphasized this by pointing out that an unbroken lineage could be traced from man back to protist ancestors, and any delimitation that represents a point in time means that an individual organism “could belong to one species one instant and to another species the next instant.”
-
Simpson (1961: 117, 165) emphasized this by pointing out that an unbroken lineage could be traced from man back to protist ancestors, and any delimitation that represents a point in time means that an individual organism “could belong to one species one instant and to another species the next instant.”
A New Book 2010
-
Simpson (1961: 117, 165) emphasized this by pointing out that an unbroken lineage could be traced from man back to protist ancestors, and any delimitation that represents a point in time means that an individual organism “could belong to one species one instant and to another species the next instant.”
A New Book 2010
-
The protist, Monosiga brevicollis, has a tyrosine kinase signaling network more elaborate and diverse than found in any known metazoan, PNAS 2008.
-
The protist M. brevicollis has already been discussed on this forum.
A Tetrahymena Puzzle 2008
-
This process has also avoided the need to sow, tend, and harvest crops for biofuels or to feed them to protist slime pools.
-
(This species of protist was described back in 2000.) (News source.)
Archive 2008-11-01 2008
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.