noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The process by which parasitic ants steal pupae from the nests of other ants and raise them in their own nest, so that they become a contributing part of the colony. uncountable

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δοῦλος (doûlos, “servant, slave, thrall”) + -osis.

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