bacteriophage

1. 1.

   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”

   Synonymsphage

   Broadervirus

   Narrowercoliphagetyphoid bacteriophage

Other forms of bacteriophage

plural

bacteriophages·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about bacteriophage

What does bacteriophage mean?

bacteriophage means "a virus that is parasitic (reproduces itself) in bacteria".

How many syllables are in bacteriophage?

bacteriophage has 5 syllables: bac-te-ri-o-phage. The stress falls on "ri".

What is another word for bacteriophage?

Close synonyms include phage. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is bacteriophage a common word?

bacteriophage is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.