animalcule

From Late Latin animalculum.

• IPA^(key): /ænɪˈmælkjuːl/

animalcule (plural animalcules)

1. (obsolete) A small animal. [16th-19th c.]
2. A microscopic aquatic animal or protozoan. [from 17th c.]
   • 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead,

     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.

3. (now historical) A spermatozoon. [from 17th c.]
   • 2001, David M Friedman, A Mind of its Own, Robert Hale 2009, p. 60:

     Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw ‘all manner of great and small vessels […].’

• animalculum

• eye animalcule
• globe animalcule
• rotifer or wheel animalcule
• paramecium or slipper animalcule
• stentor or trumpet animalcule
• peritrich or bell animalcule
• heliozoa or sun animalcule
• amoeba or proteus animalcule

animalcule m (plural animalcules)

1. animalcule