animalcule n : microscopic organism such as an amoeba or paramecium [syn: animalculum]

English

Noun

1. a tiny or microscopic life form.

Animalcule ("little animal", from Latin animal + the diminutive suffix -culum) is an older term for a microscopic animal or protozoan. Some better-known animalcules include:

• Rotifers, called wheel animalcules
• Paramecium, called slipper animalcules
• Stentor, called trumpet animalcules
• Vorticella, and other peritrichs, called bell animalcules
• Actinophrys, and other heliozoa, called sun animalcules
• Amoeba, called proteus animalcules

The term was used by Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the 17th-century preformationist and discoverer of microorganisms, to describe spermatozoa and the homunculi he believed they contained.