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A cyst in which some unicellular organisms temporarily inclose themselves, from which they emerge unchanged, after a period of drought or deficiency of food. In some instances, a process of spore formation seems to occur within such cysts.

o a living body; the process of nutrition, by which dead matter is absorbed by the living organism, and ultimately converted into the organized substance of its various tissues and organs. Dead bodies increase by apposition; living bodies by intrussusception. McKendrick.

A natural susceptibility, characteristic of all living organisms, tissues, and cells, to the influence of certain stimuli, response being manifested in a variety of ways, -- as that quality in plants by which they exhibit motion under suitable stimulation; esp., the property which living muscle processes, of responding…

ate; also, a characteristic (as a theory, doctrine, idiom, etc.); as, baptism, galvanism, organism, hypnotism, socialism, sensualism, Anglicism.

One of the spores produced by an isosporous organism.

capable of performing all or any of their functions; -- used of all animal and vegetable organisms.

A hard, or stony, plantlike organism, as the gorgonians, corals, and corallines, esp. those gorgonians having a calcareous axis. All the lithophytes except the corallines are animals.

A change in the form or function of a living organism, by a natural process of growth or development; as, the metamorphosis of the yolk into the embryo, of a tadpole into a frog, or of a bud into a blossom. Especially, that form of sexual reproduction in which an embryo undergoes a series of marked changes of external…

The assimilation by one body or organism of the elements of another.

The part of geology relating to structure and organisms which require to be studied with a microscope.

A microscopic organism; -- particularly applied to bacteria and especially to pathogenic forms; as, the microbe of fowl cholera.

Any agent detrimental to, or destructive of, the life of microbes or bacterial organisms.

The study of minute organisms, or microbes, as the bacteria. -- Mi`cro*bi`o*log"ic*al (#), a. -- Mi`cro*bi*ol"o*gist (#), n.

, forming, by transverse division, filaments, or chains of cells, or in some cases single organisms shaped like dumb-bells (Diplococcus), all without the power of motion. See Illust. of Ascoccus.

A microscopic form of life; an animal or vegetable organism microscopic size.

causing or propagating certain infectious or contagious diseases; a pathogenic bacterial organism.

Characterized by mimicry; -- applied to animals and plants; as, mimetic species; mimetic organisms. See Mimicry.

To assume a resemblance to (some other organism of a totally different nature, or some surrounding object), as a means of protection or advantage.

A simple, minute organism; a primary cell, germ, or plastid.

The direct development of an embryo, without metamorphosis, into an organism similar to the parent organism; -- opposed to metagenesis. E. van Beneden.