Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A cell, such as a white blood cell, that engulfs and absorbs waste material, harmful microorganisms, or other foreign bodies in the bloodstream and tissues.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A lymph-corpuscle, or white blood-corpuscle, regarded as an organism capable of devouring what it meets, especially pathogenic microbes.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive phagocytose
- n. cytology A cell of the immune system, such as a neutrophil, macrophage or dendritic cell, that engulfs and destroys viruses, bacteria and waste materials, or in the case of mature dendritic cells; displays antigens from invading pathogens to cells of the lymphoid lineage.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Physiol.) A leucocyte which plays a part in retrogressive processes by taking up (eating), in the form of fine granules, the parts to be removed.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a cell that engulfs and digests debris and invading microorganisms
Etymologies
- Either from the noun or from the French phagocyter. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Returning to Odessa, Mechnikov visited Vienna on the way and explained his ideas to Claus, Professor of Zoology there and it was Claus who suggested the term phagocyte for the mobile cells which act in this way.”
“Cellular assays include immunophenotyping of specific cell populations as well as assays for lymphocyte and phagocyte function.”
“When pathogenic microbes were discovered in the 1870s, Metchnikoff soon applied to the phagocyte the new role of defending the organism against invaders.”
“Indeed, on this view, the phagocyte became an exemplar combatant of Darwinian struggle, now occurring within the organism.”
“He found such an agent in the phagocyte, which retained its ancient phylogenetic eating function, to devour effete, dead, or injured cells that violated the phagocyte's sense of organismal identity.”
“The portrayal of the phagocyte as autonomous is largely derivative from the linked features of its capacity to sense its environment and move freely within it, and the various degrees of unpredictability and meaningfulness that characterize this behavior.”
“One type of phagocyte—a macrophage—is known as “big-eater.””
“Jam is pretty interesting, as in vertebrates its relatives turn up on white blood cells involved in immunity, and play a role in phagocyte movement during inflammation.”
Stuck on you, biological Velcro and the evolution of adaptive immunity - The Panda's Thumb
“The argument was that you were writing for other scientists, so defining words like endometriosis or phagocyte were simply a waste of your word limits.”
“Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the intruder, the betrayer, the guilty cell is a phagocyte, a virus, a cancer, a germ, or a Negro man named Benny Russell.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘phagocyte’.
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
-cyte, cyt-
denoting a mature cell
lymphocyte, leucocyte, hemocyte, oocyte, spermatocyte, thrombocyte, phagocyte, myelocyte, monocyte, microcyte, melanocyte, histiocyte and 1 more...
-
And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
-
bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
-
Hunson's List-O-Rama
Is it a random word or is it the next big thing?
dynamite, post hoc ergo pro..., hasty, innoculous, vicarious, proliferation, pathos, logos, ethos, waffle, epistolary, phagocyte and 21 more...
-
Blood Line
Blood-related words.
neutrophil, platelet, erythrocyte, leucocyte, waldenstrom's mac..., megakaryocyte, monoclonal gammop..., pernicious anaemia, megaloblast, thalassaemia, phagocyte, basophil and 5 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for phagocyte.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.