What does "commensalism" mean?

A sharing of the same environment by two organisms where one species benefits and the other is unaffected. An example is barnacles on whales.

How do you pronounce "commensalism"?

Pronounced //kəˈmɛnsəˌlɪzm̩//.

Common synonyms include: bipartisanship, collaboration, collectivism, collusion, communism, community.

//kəˈmɛnsəˌlɪzm̩// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A sharing of the same environment by two organisms where one species benefits and the other is unaffected. An example is barnacles on whales. countable, uncountable
2
the relation between two different kinds of organisms when one receives benefits from the other without damaging it wordnet
3
The act of eating together; table fellowship. countable, uncountable

"Mary and Sally have a relationship of commensalism with each other."

From commensal + -ism.

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