coccolithophore
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
29
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of many minute mostly marine planktonic biflagellated organisms with brown chromatophores and complex calcareous, less commonly siliceous, shells.
Example Sentences
- "Chalk formations such as the white cliffs of Dover are largely composed of the bodies of countless billions of coccolithophores that bloomed, died and then sank to the seabed each season for millions of years."
- "It was filled with a kind of golden-brown planktonic algae known as coccolithophores, whose skeletons would form the chalks that underlie parts of Britain, Belgium and France today."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos, “grain, seed”) + λίθος (líthos, “stone”) + φόρος (phóros, “carry”); this compound references how the phytoplanktonic organism's life cycle results in the depositing of its microscopic seed-like calcic exoskeleton, forming calcite.