mycoplasma
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.14 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any infectious bacterium of the genus Mycoplasma, often specifically Mycoplasma pneumoniae
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Officials are investigating whether the illness was caused by mycoplasma, a common bacteria known as walking pneumonia."
- "It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted."
Etymology
From translingual Mycoplasma, from Latin, from Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “fungus”) + πλάσμα (plásma, “-shaped”). Equivalent to myco- + plasma.
Origin
- Source language: Latin