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animalculist

noun
/anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/UK

Etymology

From animalcule + -ist.

  1. derived from *h₂enh₁-✻ — “to breathe”
  2. derived from animal — “animal; living creature”
  3. learned borrowing from animalculum — “lowly or small animal”
  4. suffixed as animalculist — “animalcule + ist”

Definitions

  1. A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon

    A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.

  2. 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.

  3. Pertaining to animalculism.

    • Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception.

The neighborhood

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA