Acanthamoeba

//əˌkæn.θəˈmiː.bə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any amoeba of the genus Acanthamoeba, found chiefly in soil.

    "They have also advised people to throw out their current contact lenses and the lens storage cases because they may harbor the acanthamoeba parasite."

Example

More examples

"They have also advised people to throw out their current contact lenses and the lens storage cases because they may harbor the acanthamoeba parasite."

Etymology

From acanth- (“thorny”) + amoeba.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.