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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

animalculist en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/ (UK)

Etymology

From animalcule + -ist.

Meanings

  1. (historical) Pertaining to animalculism.
    • Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception. 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 217:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
more animalculist Degree=Cmp lexicographic
most animalculist Degree=Sup lexicographic

Translations (1)

fr animalculiste (Translations)

animalculist en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/ (UK)

Etymology

From animalcule + -ist.

Meanings

  1. (historical) A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.
  2. (obsolete) Someone who studies animalcules.
    • All at once a botanist, already celebrated, proclaimed that he had seen the embryo forming in the grain of pollen and penetrating the ovule with the pollenical tube. This unexpected animalculist was Schleiden. 1882, “Sketch of Matthias Jacob Schleiden”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 22:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
animalculists Number=Plur lexicographic

Translations (2)

pt animalculista (believer in the theory of animalculism) · fr animalculiste (believer in the theory of animalculism)