animalculist

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From animalcule +‎ -ist.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

animalculist (plural animalculists)

  1. (historical) A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism. [from 18th c.]
  2. (obsolete) Someone who studies animalcules. [19th c.]
    • 1882, “Sketch of Matthias Jacob Schleiden”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 22:
      All at once a botanist, already celebrated, proclaimed that he had seen the embryo forming in the grain of pollen and penetrating the ovule with the pollenical tube. This unexpected animalculist was Schleiden.

Translations[edit]

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Adjective[edit]

animalculist (comparative more animalculist, superlative most animalculist)

  1. (historical) Pertaining to animalculism. [from 19th c.]
    • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 217:
      Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception.

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French animalculiste.

Noun[edit]

animalculist m (plural animalculiști)

  1. animalculist

Declension[edit]