Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a parasite.
- adj. Caused by a parasite: parasitic diseases.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of the nature of a parasite; fawning for bread or favors; meanly dependent; acting the sycophant; like a parasite in any way; of things, secondary; subordinated to or arising from another thing of the same kind.
- Specifically In zoology and botany, living or growing as a parasite; pertaining to or characteristic of parasites. See cut under Orobanche.
- In philology, attached to a word erroneously or by false analogy: thus, d in vulgar drownd, t in margent, etc., are parasitic.
- In ornithology, applied to birds which place their eggs in the nests of other birds.
- Having the characters of the Parasitica.
Wiktionary
- adj. Pertaining to a biological or symbolic parasite.
- adj. Drawing upon another organism for sustenance.
- adj. Exploiting another for personal gain.
- n. computing Component of a circuit that does not show up in a circuit's schematic but does show up in the circuit's behavior.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of the nature of a parasite; having the habits of a parasite; fawning for food or favors; sycophantic.
- adj. (Bot. & Zoöl.) Of or pertaining to parasites; living on, or deriving nourishment from, some other living animal or plant. See Parasite, 2 & 3.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or pertaining to epenthesis
- adj. of plants or persons; having the nature or habits of a parasite or leech; living off another
- adj. relating to or caused by parasites
Etymologies
- parasite + -ic (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The term parasitic grid or parasitic network appears to originate from a single British Telecomm (BT) researcher named Peter Cochrane.”
“This particular type was what we call a parasitic set of twins -- like any parasite, where one being is living off of the other.”
“This kind of completeness is rare in parasitic twins, especially among fetus in fetu, which tend not to be "alive" in the sense we think of, but rather a sort of growth in human form.”
“Even allowing for Behe's misunderstanding concerning the evolution of drug resistance in parasitic Plasmodia, you've been exposed to this subject long enough to know that evolutionary theory does not predict that every possible trait will evolve, or how long it might take to evolve.”
“Zachriel: Even allowing for Behe's misunderstanding concerning the evolution of drug resistance in parasitic Plasmodia, you've been exposed to this subject long enough to know that evolutionary theory does not predict that every possible trait will evolve, or how long it might take to evolve.”
“I find her use of Twitter to express this interesting, especially since she herself in an earlier comment said she used the word parasitic because of the character limit of Twitter.”
“If we allow that some games do not economically prosper from certain research that has no utility to them, we can see why I used the word parasitic - the effort of assisting that research would be an expense to the company with no corresponding benefit to it.”
““A psychopath is playing a short-term parasitic game.””
“In autumn 1948 we had the visit of Professor W.H. Thorpe of Cambridge who had demonstrated true imprinting in parasitic wasps and was interested in our work.”
“The rapidity of creation and distribution of these new varieties has already diversified the type of resistance to diseases and therefore minimizes the menace of destructive disease epidemics if and when changes occur in parasitic races of the pathogens.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘parasitic’.
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A-R-A Words
It's an odd-looking pattern in English. Please add words if it makes you happy. :) K-POW! Wow @gulyasrobi!
scarab, Arawak, Sahara, Arab, pharaoh, caravan, carat, parachute, arachnid, Saran Wrap, Sarah, tarantella and 492 more...
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People are Scum
words that one may enjoy using to describe other people or their actions
degenerate, reprobate, scapegrace, capricious, sycophant, arbitrary, infernal, abominable, iniquitous, nefarious, philistine, sadistic and 39 more...
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phil vocab 3
genocide, superfluous, warfare, indissoluble, sentient, confound, pernicious, dispose, render, amiable, paradox, puritanical and 36 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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the physical experience
wank, snog, tendon, sinew, sauce shelf, pet, arse, astigmatism, bisexual, brassiere, breast, climax and 186 more...
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nfrank's Words
antediluvian, equivocate, inchoate, denouement, effulgent, edify, endemic, palimpsest, apropos, circumnavigate, circumlocution, cognoscente and 484 more...
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Bird Wirds: Adjectives
Adjectives used in actual (non-taxonomic) bird names, past and present.
roseate, glossy, whooping, neotropic, pelagic, ferruginous, crested, whiskered, marbled, tufted, horned, eared and 818 more...
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asleeponthesun's Words
harlequin, exquisite, supernova, mesmerize, wretched, reciprocate, legendary, mirror, slumber, capital, monastic, synergistic and 71 more...
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I Must Emancipate These Words From My...
tepid, acrimonious, quell, motley, delineate, illuminate, fraudulent, capacious, contemporaneous, vexed, disarray, magnanimous and 47 more...
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menos_el_oso's list
illuminate, ostentatious, explicit, abstain, limbs, sunder, uncouth, parasitic, lucid, armed, vapor, vainglorious and 2 more...
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"King Dork" and his Mispronunciation ...
bête noire, wanton, weltschmerz, abortive, dipsomania, concupiscent, obsequious, malevolence, charade, ostracizing, periphery, parasitic and 20 more...
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my favorite adjectives
Tweets
Looking for tweets for parasitic.
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