plasm

English

Etymology

From Late Latin plasma (literally “mold”) or Ancient Greek πλάσμα (plásma, “something formed”), in some cases via German Plasma or French plasme, like English plasma.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈplæzəm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æzəm

Noun

plasm (countable and uncountable, plural plasms)

1. (biology, archaic) Protoplasm.
   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?" "Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity.

2. A mold or matrix in which anything is cast or formed to a particular shape.
   • 1922, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Sleep and Dreams”, in Fantasia of the Unconscious, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 104:

     A man very rarely has an image of a person with whom he is livingly, vitally connected. He only has dream-images of the persons who, in some way, oppose his life-flow and his soul's freedom, and so become impressed upon his plasm as objects of resistance.

3. A membrane or cell layer, especially one in an embryo that later develops into a structure; the constituent cells of such layer.
   • 1990, Robert Wall, This Side Up: Spatial Determination in the Early Development of Animals, Cambridge University Press, 2005, paperback, page 96,

     The last chapter showed severe limitations in the concept of 'mosaic' development as it applies to spiralian embryos. It did, however, demonstrate differential segregations occurring at cleavage there, and seen for visibly distinct plasms, some macromolecules and determinants inferred from experimental studies.

   • 2000, Kay Elder, Brian Dale, In Vitro Fertilization, Cambridge University Press, page 83:

     Shortly after fertilization the cytoplasmic components of the ascidian oocyte are redistributed according to a certain pattern and form five distinct territories or plasms (Figure 4.7). During cleavage these plasms become compartmentalized into different blastomeres which in turn give rise to the various cell lines.

Derived terms

• ectoplasm
• germ plasm
• germplasm
• plasmodium
• pole plasm

Related terms

• cytoplasm
• ectoplasm
• mictoplasm
• plasma
• protoplasm

Anagrams

• Lamps, Palms, lamps, palms, psalm