foraminifer
Syllables: for·a·min·if·er/ˌfɒɹəˈmɪnɪfə/US/ˌfɔɹəˈmɪnəfɚ/
foraminifer noun: any of a large group of aquatic amoeboid protists of the subphylum Foraminifera, characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm that among other things is used for catching food, often with a calcareous shell with many holes through which pseudopodia protrude.
Noun
foraminifer (plural foraminifers)
- Any of a large group of aquatic amoeboid protists of the subphylum Foraminifera, characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm that among other things is used for catching food, often with a calcareous shell with many holes through which pseudopodia protrude.
- The species of foraminifer which composes, almost to the exclusion of all others, the deep Atlantic mud, is called Globigerina. […] The natural home of the foraminifers appears to be in the deeper parts of the ocean, commencing where the regular inhabitants of limited depths terminate.1859 October, “Art. V.—Physical Geography of the Atlantic Ocean.”, in The Westminster Review, American edition, volume LXXII, number CXLII, New York, N.Y.: Leonard Scott & Co., […], →OCLC, page 263
- The Heterostegina-bed at Malta is not without smaller Foraminifers (some of which we can identify,—as the Globigerina bulloides, Truncatulina lobatula, &c.), but the matrix is too stubborn to yield all its treasures.1860 January 4, T[homas] Rupert Jones, W[illiam] K[itchen] Parker, “3. On the Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediterranean, Compared with that of the Italian and Some Other Tertiary Deposits.”, in The...
- Synonyms:
- foram, foraminifera, foraminiferan, foraminiferid, foraminiferon, foraminiferum
Examples of foraminifer in a sentence
- The environmental significance of foraminifer abundance variations in Arctic cores is controversial[…].1994, Richard Z. Poore, Scott E. Ishman, R. Lawrence Phillips, David H. McNeil, “Paleoceanography”, in Quaternary Stratigraphy and...
- A cross-section through a single agglutinated foraminifer – in this case, one that selected both carbonate and non-carbonate grains to build its test.2003, Peter A. Scholle, “Grains: Skeletal Fragments: Foraminifers”, in A Color Guide to the Petrography of Carbonate Rocks: Grains...
- One of the most frequently asked questions concerns the predators of planktic foraminifers.2017, Ralf Schiebel, Christoph Hemleben, “Nutrition, Symbionts, and Predators”, in Planktic Foraminifers in the Modern Ocean, 2nd edition...
Synonyms of foraminifer
Forms of foraminifer
| plural | foraminifers |
|---|
Origin of foraminifer
Borrowed from French foraminifère (“foraminifer, foraminifera”), from French Foraminifères, coined by the French naturalist Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857) in an 1826 article. By surface analysis, Latin forāmen (“apertures, holes”, stem foramin-) + -fer (“bearing”).
Words formed from foraminifer
Questions about foraminifer
- What does foraminifer mean?
- Foraminifer means any of a large group of aquatic amoeboid protists of the subphylum Foraminifera, characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm that among other things is used for catching food, often with a calcareous shell with many holes through which pseudopodia protrude.
- How do you use foraminifer in a sentence?
- The environmental significance of foraminifer abundance variations in Arctic cores is controversial[…].
- What part of speech is foraminifer?
- Foraminifer is a noun.
- How do you pronounce foraminifer?
- Foraminifer is pronounced /ˌfɒɹəˈmɪnɪfə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of foraminifer?
- The plural of foraminifer is foraminifers.
Words near foraminifer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: foraminifer (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-foraminifer.wav.
Cite this entry: “foraminifer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/foraminifer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.