What does "macrophage" mean?

A white blood cell that phagocytizes necrotic cell debris and foreign material, including viruses, bacteria, and tattoo ink. It presents foreign antigens on MHC II to lymphocytes. Part of the innate immune system.

What is a synonym for "macrophage"?

Common synonyms include: clasmatocyte, macrophagocyte.

How do you pronounce "macrophage"?

Pronounced //ˈmækɹɔʊː.feɪd͡ʒ//.

Macrophage

//ˈmækɹɔʊː.feɪd͡ʒ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A white blood cell that phagocytizes necrotic cell debris and foreign material, including viruses, bacteria, and tattoo ink. It presents foreign antigens on MHC II to lymphocytes. Part of the innate immune system.
2
a large phagocyte; some are fixed and other circulate in the blood stream wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

clasmatocyte macrophagocyte

Example

More examples

"Interleukin-1 is made mainly by one type of white blood cell, the macrophage, and helps another type of white blood cell, the lymphocyte, fight infections."

Etymology

From macro- + -phage, both from Ancient Greek.

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