PLASMODIUM (plasmodia)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: plasmodia   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does plasmodium mean? 

• PLASMODIUM (noun)
  The noun PLASMODIUM has 2 senses:

1. multinucleate sheet of cytoplasm characteristic of some stages of such organisms as slime molds

2. parasitic protozoan of the genus Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans

  Familiarity information: PLASMODIUM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLASMODIUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Multinucleate sheet of cytoplasm characteristic of some stages of such organisms as slime molds

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("plasmodium" is a kind of...):

cytol; cytoplasm (the protoplasm of a cell excluding the nucleus; is full of proteins that control cell metabolism)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Parasitic protozoan of the genus Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

malaria parasite; plasmodium; Plasmodium vivax

Hypernyms ("plasmodium" is a kind of...):

sporozoan (parasitic spore-forming protozoan)

Holonyms ("plasmodium" is a member of...):

genus Plasmodium (type genus of the family Plasmodiidae)

 Context examples 

Agents used to treat malaria, and are usually classified based on action against plasmodia at different stages in their life cycle in the human.

(Antimalarial Agent, NCI Thesaurus)