noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The group of nutritive zooids of a hydrozoan.
2. 2
   The mass of chemolithoautotrophic bacteria in a pogonophoran that metabolizes sulfide.
3. 3
   An organ found in some animals, located in the coelomic cavity, that houses symbiotic bacteria, which in turn provide nutrients to the host animal.

Etymology

From tropho- + -some.

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