Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Protozoa

Protozoa

1 8.6
Tiny living things made of one cell, like amoebas, that usually live in water or inside other animals
  • noun
  • /ˌproʊtəˈzoʊə/
  • Archaic
translation icon : protozoos
  • They claim that it will kill bacteria, protozoa, and viruses as it reaches pasteurization temperature.
  • Protozoa and bacteria
  • Protozoa and fungi
  • Protozoa and viruses

Examples

  • So let's just say that protozoa are the base of the, the, the single cell basis of animals.

  • Protozoa are more resistant to water disinfectants than bacteria, and disinfection may be sufficient to inactivate coliforms but not protozoa.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Diseases caused by viruses and protozoa proved harder to combat, but the first generation of Pasteurian scientists believed that they could eventually find vaccines against all infectious diseases.

    Academic text (1993)

  • However, a search of the literature reveals that many microorganisms (Table 1), including bacteria, protozoa, yeast, fungi, and viruses, are not effectively killed by exposure to these heavy metals.

    Academic text (2001)

  • A rich assembly of termites, nematodes, mycorrhizal fungi, and protozoa ply overlapping or competing trades in micro locales.

    Academic text (1994)

  • These events are responsible for the severity of the infection (Barragan and Sibley, 2003). As the protozoa can cross the placental barrier, the infection may propagate to subsequent generations.

    Academic text (2014)

  • The first protozoa were discovered over 300 years ago by van Leeuwenhoek.

  • The second category is the protozoa, one-celled organisms like the amoeba.

  • Many diseases in humans are caused by protozoa such as Giardia.

Surface Forms

Protozoa singular
Protozoa plural

Morphology

Protozoa = proto + zoa

Although the word contains recognizable Greek-based elements, it is a specialized scientific term whose meaning is not readily recoverable for an average learner from its parts.

Etymology

Protozoa comes from the Greek parts proto- meaning 'first' and zoa meaning 'animals', and you can see the same pieces in prototype 'first model' and zoo 'place of animals'. So Protozoa literally means 'first animals', a helpful way to remember that these tiny, single-celled life forms were once thought to be the simplest animals.