POLYMORPH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does polymorph mean? 

• POLYMORPH (noun)
  The noun POLYMORPH has 1 sense:

1. an organism that can assume more than one adult form as in the castes of ants or termites

  Familiarity information: POLYMORPH used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POLYMORPH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An organism that can assume more than one adult form as in the castes of ants or termites

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

being; organism (a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently)

Derivation:

polymorphic (having or occurring in several distinct forms)

polymorphic (relating to the occurrence of more than one kind of individual (independent of sexual differences) in an interbreeding population)

 Context examples 

Scientists at Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University have found that the mineral vaterite, a form (polymorph) of calcium carbonate, is a dominant component of the protective silvery-white crust that forms on the leaves of a number of alpine plants, which are part of the Garden’s national collection of European Saxifraga species.

(Rare mineral discovered in plants for first time, University of Cambridge)