animalculist

UK/anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/

animalculist noun: a believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.

Noun

animalculist (plural animalculists)

(historical) A believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.
(obsolete) Someone who studies animalcules.
- All at once a botanist, already celebrated, proclaimed that he had seen the embryo forming in the grain of pollen and penetrating the ovule with the pollenical tube. This unexpected animalculist was Schleiden.1882, “Sketch of Matthias Jacob Schleiden”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 22

animalculist (comparative more animalculist, superlative most animalculist)

(historical) Pertaining to animalculism.
- Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception.1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 217

From animalcule + -ist.

What does animalculist mean?: Animalculist means a believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.
What part of speech is animalculist?: Animalculist can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce animalculist?: Animalculist is pronounced /anɪˈmalkjʊlɪst/ (UK).
What is the plural of animalculist?: The plural of animalculist is animalculists.

Adapted from Wiktionary: animalculist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “animalculist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/animalculist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.