Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Spending different stages of the life cycle on different, usually unrelated hosts. Used of parasites.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to or characterized by heterœcism.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Bot.) Passing through the different stages in its life history on an alternation of hosts, as the common wheat-rust fungus (
Puccinia graminis ), and certain other parasitic fungi; -- contrasted withautœcious .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective biology Of dependent organisms, spending portions of the life cycle on different types of
hosts .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of parasites; passing through different stages of the life cycle on different host species
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[hetero– + Greek oikiā, house; see weik- in Indo-European roots + –ous.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
hetero- + -oecious
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Examples
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