Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Amoeba
/əˈmiːbə/noun
A single-celled organism that moves and feeds by pushing out temporary extensions of its own body.
The Greek roots
ἀμοιβή
amoibḗ
change, exchange
Literally: “change”
Follow a root:ἀμοιβή1 word
The story of the word
Named for the one thing it will not do: hold a shape. Rösel von Rosenhof, who drew it in 1755, called it the little Proteus after the sea god who slipped through every grip; naturalists reached for amoibḗ, change, when the genus was formally set up in the 1820s. The same root gives amoebean verse, where two singers answer each other line for line.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern Latin → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
amoebicamoeboid
In a sentence
Under the school microscope the amoeba looked like a spill of grey jelly with opinions.
Her department reorganises so often the org chart has gone amoeba.