Word.ws English Dictionary

nematocyst

nematocyst noun: a capsule, in certain cnidarians, containing a barbed, threadlike tube that delivers a paralyzing sting.

Noun

nematocyst (plural nematocysts)

  1. A capsule, in certain cnidarians, containing a barbed, threadlike tube that delivers a paralyzing sting
    • Often one sees, on surface view, a distinctly rounded vacuole, occupying a position in the cell occupied in others by a large nematocyst.1885, R. J. Harvey Gibson, “Observations on the nematocysts of Hydra fusca”, in Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, volume 39, page 30
    • The young nematocyst decreases in size and becomes coarsely granular, the granules arranging themselves in a spiral line close under the external membrane.1902, Arthur Willey, Zoological Results Based on Material from New Britain, New Guinea, Loyalty Islands and Elsewhere, page 379

nematocyst meaning in Tamil

nematocyst in Tamil

கொட்டும் செல் பை

Examples of nematocyst in a sentence

  • Nematocysts or stinging cells are specialised organelles which act for defence and offence of Hydra.
  • The conical hypostome was encircled by 4–14 filiform amphicoronate tentacles with nematocysts.
  • A new category of heterotrichous microbasic rhopaloid nematocysts was identified in the scyphopolyps.

All 10 example sentences with nematocyst

Synonyms of nematocyst

Forms of nematocyst

pluralnematocysts

Origin of nematocyst

Formed as nemato- + cyst after the French nématocyste.

Words formed from nematocyst

Questions about nematocyst

What does nematocyst mean?
Nematocyst means a capsule, in certain cnidarians, containing a barbed, threadlike tube that delivers a paralyzing sting.
What is nematocyst in Tamil?
Nematocyst in Tamil is கொட்டும் செல் பை. See Nematocyst meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is nematocyst?
Nematocyst is a noun.
What is the plural of nematocyst?
The plural of nematocyst is nematocysts.

Words near nematocyst in the dictionary

  1. nematocerous
  2. nematocidal
  3. nematocide
  4. nematocides
  5. nematocin
  6. nematocyst
  7. nematocystic
  8. nematocysts
  9. nematocyte
  10. nematocytes
  11. nematodal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nematocyst (page history and authors); nematocyst (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “nematocyst.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nematocyst. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.