animalcule
/ˌænəˈmælˌkjul/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A sperm cell or spermatozoon; also, the embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state.
Example Sentences
- "[Antonie van] Leeuwenhoek's most mysterious finding was yet to come, however. Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw / all manner of great and small vessels, so various and so numerous that I do not doubt that they be nerves, arteries and veins. …"
- "If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent."
- "Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head: […]"
- "Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?"
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin animalculum (“lowly or small animal”) + English -cule (diminutive suffix). Animalculum is derived from Latin animal (“animal; living creature”) + -culum (diminutive suffix); and animal from animāle, the nominative neuter singular of animālis (“animate, living; relating to living creatures”), from anima (“breath; life; soul, spirit”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- (“to breathe”)) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship). The English word is analysable as animal + -cule.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌænəˈmælˌkjul/
- British English: /ænɪˈmælkjuːl/