paramecium
noun
Word History
borrowed from New Latin Paramecium, pre-Linnaean name for protozoa of the genus, from Greek paramḗkēs "oblong, oval" (from para- para- entry 1 + -mēkēs, adjective corresponding to mêkos "length, height, magnitude") + New Latin -ium -ium — more at meager
Note: The name Paramecium was introduced, in both Latin descriptions and English descriptions maintaining the Latin coinage Paramecium, by the English polymath John Hill (ca. 1714-1775) in An History of Animals (London, 1752, vol. 3 of his A General Natural History), p. 4. The word was first used as a Linnaean genus name by Otto Frederik Müller in Vermivm terrestrium et fluviatilium, seu, Animalium infusoriorum … succincta historia, vol. 1 (Copenhagen & Leipzig, 1773), p. 54 (spelled unetymologically Paramæcium, corrected in later publications).
1752, in the meaning defined above
Kids Definition
paramecium
noun
Medical Definition
paramecium
noun
also parameciums : any ciliate protozoan of the genus Paramecium - destructest
- destructibilities
- destructibility
- destructible
- destructing
- destruction
- destructional
- destructionism
- destructionist
- destructionists
- destructions
- destructive
- destructive distillation
- destructive sorites
- destructively
- destructiveness
- destructivenesses
- destructivities
- destructivity
- destructor
- destructors
- destructs
- desublimate
- desublimation
- desubstantival