Meaning & use

protozoan

noun·Advanced

A single-celled microscopic organism, typically able to move and often found in water or soil.

See it in a sentence

The biology class examined a protozoan swimming across the slide under the microscope.

Malaria is caused by a protozoan that infects red blood cells after a mosquito bite.

A note on using this word

Protozoan is used as both a noun and, less commonly, an adjective; the plural is 'protozoa' or 'protozoans.'

Words with a similar meaning

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