释义 |
animalcule /ˌanɪˈmalkjuːl /noun archaicA microscopic animal.Looking at these samples with his microscope, Leeuwenhoek reported how in his own mouth: ‘I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving.’...- It is in this context that the idea of an evaluative classification came into its own, a progressive scale of nature leading from the lowest animalcules to the glory of mankind.
- Three weeks later, on April 24, 1676, he discovered an incredible number of very little animalcules, marking the first sighting of bacteria.
Derivativesanimalcular adjective ...- Thanks to the diversity of natural and climatic conditions there exist the large number of elementary plants and animalcular organisms on the small territory of Armenia.
- That molecular was sometimes confounded with animalcular motion by several of the earlier microscopical observers, appears extremely probable from various passages in the writings of Leeuwenhoek.
- In 1832 he had surmised cholera to be of animalcular origin, and later thought the same of tuberculosis and typhoid.
OriginLate 16th century: from modern Latin animalculum, from animal 'an animal' + -cule. |