animalcule
English
WOTD – 11 January 2023
Etymology
A scanning electron micrograph of human spermatozoa, formerly known as animalcules (sense 1).
An 18th-century illustration of animalcules (sense 2) seen through microscopes.
Learned borrowing from Late Latin animalculum (“lowly or small animal”) + English -cule (diminutive suffix). Animalculum is derived from Latin animal (“animal; living creature”) + -culum (diminutive suffix);[1] and animal from animāle, the nominative neuter singular of animālis (“animate, living; relating to living creatures”), from anima (“breath; life; soul, spirit”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- (“to breathe”)) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship). The English word is analysable as animal + -cule.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ænɪˈmælkjuːl/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˌænəˈmælˌkjul/
- Hyphenation: ani‧mal‧cule
Noun
animalcule (plural animalcules)
- (physiology, historical) A sperm cell or spermatozoon; also, the embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state. [from 17th c.]
- 2001, David M. Friedman, “The Gear Shift”, in A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, →ISBN, page 76:
- [Antonie van] Leeuwenhoek's most mysterious finding was yet to come, however. Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw / all manner of great and small vessels, so various and so numerous that I do not doubt that they be nerves, arteries and veins. …
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- (zoology, archaic) A microscopic aquatic animal, including protozoa and rotifers. [from 17th c.]
- 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, “La·hwi·ne·ski: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist”, in Pulphead, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, OCLC 978-0-374-53290-1, pages 212–213:
- If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent.
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- (obsolete) A small animal. [16th–20th c.]
- 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Pause”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], OCLC 614372740, book second, page 137:
- Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head: […]
- 1928 February 25 – March 3, Arthur Conan Doyle, “When the World Screamed”, in The Professor Challenger Stories […], London: John Murray, […], published [1952], OCLC 4342633, page 555:
- Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?
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Synonyms
- animalcula (used as a singular noun) (archaic)
- animalculum
Hyponyms
- bell animalcule (peritrich)
- eye animalcule
- globe animalcule
- proteus animalcule (amoeba)
- slipper animalcule (paramecium)
- sun animalcule (heliozoa)
- trumpet animalcule (stentor)
- wheel animalcule (rotifer)
Derived terms
- animalcular
- animalculine (obsolete, rare)
- animalculism (historical)
- animalculist (historical)
- animalculistic
- animalculous (archaic)
- caminalcule
Related terms
- animalcula (used as a singular noun)
- animalculum
Translations
sperm cell or spermatozoon — see spermatozoon
embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state
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microscopic aquatic animal, including protozoa and rotifers
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References
- “animalcule, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “animalcule, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
animalcule on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
French
Noun
animalcule m (plural animalcules)
- animalcule
Further reading
- “animalcule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.