Definitions

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

  • noun A proteinaceous structure found within the chloroplast of certain algae and hornwort bryophytes. It is thought to be a site where carbon is concentrated.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Resembling in form the stone of a fruit; globular; nucleiform; of excrescent bodies, wart-like.
  • noun A small colorless mass of proteid substance of a crystalline form, usually appearing hexagonal in optical section.
  • noun One of the colorless plastids, or leucoplasts, found in the chromatophores of algæ and constituting centers for the formation of starch.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A transparent body found in the chromatophores of certain Infusoria.

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

  • noun biology any of several transparent structures found in the chloroplast of certain algae etc.; they are responsible for the fixation of carbon dioxide and the formation of starch

Etymologies

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

[New Latin pȳrēna, fruit stone; see pyrene + –oid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From pyrene +‎ -oid.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pyrenoid.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.