Word.ws English Dictionary

cryptosporidium

cryptosporidium noun: any protozoan of the genus Cryptosporidium, intestinal parasites of humans and other vertebrates that can cause diarrhea and other symptoms in cases of low immunity.

cryptosporidium: any protozoan of the genus Cryptosporidium, intestinal parasites of humans and other vertebrates...
Image: Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cryptosporidium (plural cryptosporidia)

  1. Any protozoan of the genus Cryptosporidium, intestinal parasites of humans and other vertebrates that can cause diarrhea and other symptoms in cases of low immunity.
    • Recall the outbreak of cryptosporidia gastroenteritis in Milwaukee in 1994.1998, Richard M. Krause, “1: Introduction to Emerging Infectious Diseases; Stemming the Tide”, in Richard M. Krause, editor, Emerging Infections, Academic Press, page 9
    • In Hungarian studies on the causes of diarrhea in kids younger than one month of age in large commercial dairy goat herds, cryptosporidia were isolated more frequently than rotavirus, coronavirus, adenovirus, or enterotoxigenic E. coli.2009, Mary C. Smith, David M. Sherman, Goat Medicine, 2nd edition, Wiley (Wiley-Blackwell), page 438

Forms of cryptosporidium

pluralcryptosporidia

Origin of cryptosporidium

From translingual Cryptosporidium (the genus name), from Latin crypto- (“hidden”) + sporidium (“spore”). From 20th century.

Words formed from cryptosporidium

Questions about cryptosporidium

What does cryptosporidium mean?
Cryptosporidium means any protozoan of the genus Cryptosporidium, intestinal parasites of humans and other vertebrates that can cause diarrhea and other symptoms in cases of low immunity.
What part of speech is cryptosporidium?
Cryptosporidium is a noun.
What is the plural of cryptosporidium?
The plural of cryptosporidium is cryptosporidia.

Words near cryptosporidium in the dictionary

  1. cryptospores
  2. cryptosporidia
  3. cryptosporidial
  4. cryptosporidian
  5. cryptosporidiosis
  6. cryptosporidium
  7. cryptosporidosis
  8. cryptosporopsin
  9. cryptostictic acid
  10. cryptostigmin
  11. cryptostome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cryptosporidium (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.

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