Overparasitized
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Excessively parasitized; affected by an unusually large number or intensity of parasites, often resulting in harm or reduced viability.
"The explanation of this was, that nature had overdone her work, the larvae had been overparasitized, that is to say, the larvae had been attacked by several flies, with the result that the amount of food contained in the body of any one larva was insufficient for the large number of grubs devouring its tissues, all thus dying from starvation before reaching maturity."
Example
More examples"The explanation of this was, that nature had overdone her work, the larvae had been overparasitized, that is to say, the larvae had been attacked by several flies, with the result that the amount of food contained in the body of any one larva was insufficient for the large number of grubs devouring its tissues, all thus dying from starvation before reaching maturity."
Etymology
From over- + parasitized.
More for "overparasitized"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.