mycoderma
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One of the forms in which microbes group themselves; a (microscopic or macroscopic) layer of motionless but living microbes united on the surface of the fluid in which they are developed, differing from the zoogloea stage by not having the intermediate mucous substance.
Archaic; Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The sugar is first decomposed by the anærobiotic yeast plant, and the residues which it leaves behind are consumed in their turn by the ærobiotic mycodermata. There are many other ways in which the sugar can be resolved into carbonic dioxide and water, but everywhere there is the same mixture of anærobiotic and ærobiotic organisms. But it is unnecessary to insist. Enough has already been said to show how the different hydrocarbons of a quantity of wort disappear."
Etymology
Nineteenth century. Appellativization from genus name Mycoderma, which was coined in 1822 as a scientific name for the putative genus of organisms in mother of vinegar; they were named thus under the belief that they were fungi (although in fermentation there may also be bacteria present besides the yeast), hence the combining form myco- (for more, see Wikipedia); by surface analysis, myco- + derma, where the latter component refers to the "skin" formed on fermenting liquid.