Meaning & use
ciliate
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Meanings
nouncountablebiology
A single-celled organism whose surface is covered with many short hair-like cilia used for movement and feeding.
Grammar: Takes a plural ciliates; examples include paramecia, so it is narrower than protozoan.
Patterns
- a ciliate protozoan
- a ciliate feeds
- observe ciliates
Under the microscope, the ciliate moved by beating its cilia.
A paramecium is a familiar ciliate found in pond water.
adjectivebefore a nounbiology
Having an edge or surface fringed with fine hair-like cilia.
Grammar: Used before nouns such as leaf or cell; the common biology adjective is often ciliated rather than ciliate.
Patterns
- a ciliate leaf margin
- ciliate cells
- ciliate structures
The botanist noted a ciliate edge on the small leaf.
Ciliate cells line parts of the airway.
Word forms
| plural | ciliates |
|---|
Common combinations
- ciliate protozoan
- A ciliate protozoan glided across the slide.
- ciliate cell
- The diagram labels each ciliate cell.
- ciliate leaf margin
- A ciliate leaf margin looks fringed under a lens.
- pond-water ciliates
- Students sampled pond-water ciliates after rain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- protozoan
- Protozoan is the broader group of single-celled organisms; ciliate names a subgroup defined by cilia.
- ciliated organism
- This descriptive phrase emphasizes the cilia and can sound less technical than the noun ciliate.
Word family
Commonly confused: ciliate or celiac?
ciliate vs celiac
Celiac relates to the abdomen or celiac disease; ciliate comes from cilium and concerns tiny hair-like structures.
Practice
Why is Paramecium called a ciliate?
Choose one answer.
The defining feature is the covering of cilia; the other statements are false or describe different organisms.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ciliate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.