parasite

CEFRC1

/ˈpæɹəˌsaɪt/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    An organism that lives on or in another and takes its food.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A person who lives on other people's efforts or expense and gives little or nothing back.

Examples

  • The alien is a small intelligent multidimensional parasite that attaches to the host's nervous system.

  • Tom ate a salad contaminated with the cyclospora parasite.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. An organism that lives on or in another organism of a different species, deriving benefit from living on or in that other organism, while not contributing towards that other organism sufficiently to cover the cost to that other organism.

  2. An internal parasite that is an animal or protist.

  3. A sycophant or hanger-on.

More examples

In context

  • You're nothing more than a social parasite!

  • Lice, fleas, ticks, and mites are widely spread parasites.

  • parasite display

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The flea acts as a blank on dogs, drinking their blood for nutrition.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle French parasite, from Latin parasitus, from Ancient Greek παράσιτος (parásitos, “person who eats at the table of another”), from noun use of adjective meaning "feeding beside", from παρά (pará, “beside”) + σῖτος (sîtos, “food”).