noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
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"Lice, fleas, ticks, and mites are widely spread parasites."
"He lacks, however, even the basic Dr. Kildare lingo about medical issues. For instance, he regularly misidentifies poppers as amyl nitrate, instead of amyl nitrite — two forms of heart medicine with different affects ^([sic]). Salmonella, a bacteria, is not usually classified as a parasite. And he mistakenly writes, "lenti means slow" in the lentiviruses. ("Lenti" means lens-shaped, biologists classify by structure, not by behavior.)"
"A royalist who publicly called for a military intervention to protect the parasite monarchy."
"Her golden tresses shade / The bosom's stainless pride, / Curling like tendrils of the parasite / Around a marble column."
"[…] parasiting and aerial refueling as range-extension measures. Second, parasiting would be exorbitantly expensive, because each parasite bomber would need its own carrier. Two bombers could be serviced by a single tanker, however,[…]"
"parasite display"
"... parasiting upon her husband, taking everything and giving nothing in return, this woman had brought her husband to a condition of serious ill health because of his grief, anxiety, and despair over her failure."
"The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body."
An organism that lives on or in another organism of a different species, deriving benefit from living on or in that other organism, while not contributing towards that other organism sufficiently to cover the cost to that other organism.
Common synonyms include: leech, sponger, adherent, algae, appendage, attendance.
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
Pronounced /ˈpæɹəˌsaɪt/.
From Middle French parasite, from Latin parasitus, from Ancient Greek παράσιτος (parásitos, “person who eats at the table of another”), from noun use of adjective meaning "feeding beside", from παρά (pará, “beside”) + σῖτος (sîtos, “food”).