Animalcule - Wikipedia Animalcule (Latin for 'little animal'; from animal and -culum) is an archaic term for microscopic organisms that included bacteria, protozoans, and very small animals The word was invented by 17th-century Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek to refer to the microorganisms he observed in rainwater
Animalcule - Word Genius “Cule” is what really matters, and it means tiny The earliest microbiologists studied what they called animalcules under microscopes Today they’re more likely called microbes Did you Know? In the late 1600s, scientists began to use microscopes to examine the minute creatures present in water
Leeuwenhoeks animalcules, just as he saw them 340 years ago These pictures – of the surface of a head louse and blood cells – show the type of images that Dutch biologist and microscope pioneer Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed in the late 1600s when he
Animalcules - Lens on Leeuwenhoek The word animalcule had a brief life in English It was first used in 1599, had its heyday in the century after Leeuwenhoek’s death, and it was not used much after the mid-1800s It referred to small animals, from insects to mice, but usually invertebrates
animalcule, n. meanings, etymology and more - Oxford English Dictionary There are three meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun animalcule, one of which is labelled obsolete See ‘Meaning use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence animalcule has developed meanings and uses in subjects including invertebrates (late 1500s) animals (late 1600s) physiology (late 1600s) How common is the noun animalcule?
ANIMALCULE Definition Meaning - Dictionary. com Animalcule definition: a minute or microscopic animal, nearly or quite invisible to the naked eye, as an infusorian or rotifer See examples of ANIMALCULE used in a sentence
Animalcule | biology | Britannica It inhabits the alimentary canal of certain aquatic worms The characteristic spores develop in the host’s gut after the union of large and small gametes The spores contain three polar filaments (possibly anchoring devices) enclosed in capsules and one to many infective sporozoites
Animalcule - definition of animalcule by The Free Dictionary A microscopic or minute organism, such as an amoeba or paramecium, usually considered to be an animal 2 Archaic A tiny animal, such as a mosquito [New Latin animalculum, diminutive of Latin animal, animal; see animal ] American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition