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Table of Contents POS
HYPHEN
WORDNET DICTIONARY
CIDE DICTIONARY
OXFORD DICTIONARY

bacteriophage

POS

Noun

HYPHEN

bac=te=ri=o=phage

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WORDNET DICTIONARY

Noun bacteriophage has 1 sense

bacteriophage(n = noun.animal) phage - a virus that is parasitic (reproduces itself) in bacteria; "phage uses the bacterium's machinery and energy to produce more phage until the bacterium is destroyed and phage is released to invade surrounding bacteria"

is a kind of virus

has particulars: coliphage, typhoid bacteriophage

Derived forms adjective bacteriophagic₁, adjective bacteriophagous₁

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CIDE DICTIONARY

bacteriophage, n. sing. & pl.

a virus which infects bacteria; -- also colloquially called phage in laboratory jargon.

"Bacteriophages are of many varieties, generally specific for one or a narrow range of bacterial species, and almost every bacterium is susceptible to at least one bacteriophage. They may have DNA or RNA as their genetic component. Certain types of bacteriophage, called temperate bacteriophage, may infect but not kill their host bacteria, residing in and replicating either as a plasmid or integrated into the host genome. Under certain conditions, a resident temperate phage may become induced to multiply rapidly and vegetatively, killing and lysing its host bacterium, and producing multiple progeny. The lambda phage of Eschericia coli, much studied in biochemical and genetic research, is of the temperate type." [PJC]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

bacteriophage, n. a virus parasitic on a bacterium, by infecting it and reproducing inside it.

Etymology

BACTERIUM + Gk phagein eat

For further exploring for "bacteriophage" in Webster Dictionary Online