Parasite

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈpaɹəsʌɪt/
• US IPA: /ˈpæɹəˌsaɪt/

Origin

From Latin parasitus, from Ancient Greek παράσιτος (parasitos, "person who eats at the table of another"), from noun use of adjective meaning "feeding beside", from παρά (para, "beside") + σῖτος (sitos, "food").

Full definition of parasite

Noun

1. (pejorative) A person who lives on other people's efforts or expense and gives little back. from 16th c.
2. (biology) an organism that lives on or in another organism, 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.
• 2013-03, w, The Smallest Cell, 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.
3. ''Lice, fleas, ticks and mites are widely spread parasites.
4. (literary, poetic) A climbing plant which is supported by a wall, trellis etc. from 19th c.
• 1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab, I:Her golden tresses shade
  The bosom’s stainless pride,
  Curling like tendrils of the parasite
  Around a marble column.

Antonyms

• commensal (doing no noticeable harm)
• mutualist or sometimes symbiote (beneficial)

Related terms

• parasitise, parasitize
• parasitic, parasitical
• parasiticide
• parasitism
• parasitology
• parasite drag

Anagrams

• aspirate, pastiera