amoeba

«amoeba» in Mova's school dictionary: A tiny living thing made of just one cell, which you can… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an amoeba, amoebas or amoebae; US also ameba)

meaning for a pupil

1) A tiny living thing made of just one cell, which you can only see with a microscope. tree →

2) It has no fixed shape: it moves by pushing out parts of itself like fingers (called pseudopods) and eats by wrapping round its food. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons the amoeba is a classic example of a single-celled organism that lives in ponds, soil and water. Some kinds cause illness if dirty water is drunk, which is why we boil or clean water. In everyday talk «amoeba-like» means shapeless.

examples

• Under the microscope the amoeba changed its shape. tree →
• An amoeba is made of just one cell. tree →
• The amoeba wrapped around a tiny bit of food. tree →
• Amoebae live in pond water. tree →
• We drew the amoeba with its little pseudopods. tree →
• Some amoebas can make people ill if they drink dirty water. tree →

note

Say «uh-MEE-buh». Two plurals: amoebas (everyday) and amoebae («uh-MEE-bee», science). US spelling ameba. It is not a bacterium and not an animal in the usual sense.

In the corpora

• An amoeba moves by flowing its inside forward into a bulge called a false foot, and it swallows food by flowing around it.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «amoeba» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.