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Parasite   /pˈɛrəsˌaɪt/   Listen
noun
Parasite  n.  
1.
One who frequents the tables of the rich, or who lives at another's expense, and earns his welcome by flattery; a hanger-on; a toady; a sycophant. "Thou, with trembling fear, Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st." "Parasites were called such smell-feasts as would seek to be free guests at rich men's tables."
2.
(Bot.)
(a)
A plant obtaining nourishment immediately from other plants to which it attaches itself, and whose juices it absorbs; sometimes, but erroneously, called epiphyte.
(b)
A plant living on or within an animal, and supported at its expense, as many species of fungi of the genus Torrubia.
3.
(Zool.)
(a)
An animal which lives during the whole or part of its existence on or in the body of some other animal, feeding upon its food, blood, or tissues, as lice, tapeworms, etc.
(b)
An animal which steals the food of another, as the parasitic jager.
(c)
An animal which habitually uses the nest of another, as the cowbird and the European cuckoo.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Parasite" Quotes from Famous Books



... would fall early victims; thus gradually a diminutive race of males would be selected, until at last they would dwindle to the smallest possible size compatible with the exercise of their generative functions,— in fact, probably to the size we now see them, i.e., so small as to be a sort of parasite upon the female, and either beneath her notice, or too agile and too small for her to catch ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... Austria's grace; Fain would they lay their grasp on my estates, To swell the vast domains which now they hold. The selfsame lust of conquest, that would rob You of your liberty, endangers mine. Oh, friend, I'm mark'd for sacrifice;—to be The guerdon of some parasite, perchance! They'll drag me hence to the Imperial court, That hateful haunt of falsehood and intrigue, And marriage bonds I loathe await me there. Love, love alone—your ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... some asses, counted out to a certain rascally servant of his own, Leonida. This money goes to the young fellow's mistress, and he concedes his father an evening with her. A rival of his, beside himself at being deprived of the girl, sends word, by a parasite, to the old gentleman's wife, of the whole matter. In rushes the wife and drags her husband from the ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... his letter-case. He selected a folded sheet of paper, and showed what looked like a dry blade of grass. The wheat, he said, on certain farms in his Company's territory had begun to suffer from a strange disease; here was an example of the parasite-eaten growth; no one yet had recognised the disease or discovered ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... intimate small affection for Little Nell and Little Paul, you are a brute; if you hint that his social crusades were often quite irrational, and sometimes at least as mischievous as they were beneficial, you are a parasite of aristocracy and a foe of "the people." If you take exception to his repetitions, his mannerisms, his tedious catch-processes of various kinds, you are a "stop-watch critic" and worthy of all the generous wrath of the ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury


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