eukaryote

noun

eu·kary·ote (ˌ)yü-ˈker-ē-ˌōt

-ət

-ˈka-rē-

variants or less commonly eucaryote

: any of a domain (Eukarya) or a higher taxonomic group (Eukaryota) above the kingdom that includes organisms composed of one or more cells containing visibly evident nuclei and organelles compare archaea, bacterium, prokaryote

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web Her team had not only isolated and cultivated the organism for the first time but shown that its flailing filaments were made of actin, the protein that forms a skeletal scaffold in almost all complex cells, or eukaryotes. —

Joshua Sokol, Quanta Magazine, 11 Apr. 2023 This analysis revealed a new phylum of DNA viruses that are shaped like herpesviruses and infect eukaryotes but share a key enzyme with large and giant viruses. —

Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2023 Life was limited to the oceans and large creatures had yet to evolve, but fossils show that microscopic eukaryotes such as algae lived before and after the episode. —

Byadam Mann, science.org, 4 Apr. 2023 Eukaryote cells are much bigger than bacteria, and eukaryote cells have, on several occasions, stuck together to form multicellular bodies. —

Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 28 July 2011 This is the first eukaryote — organisms, like plants and animals, whose cells contain distinct nuclei — found without the machinery of mitochondria. —

Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2016 Mixoplankton are protists, which are basically any eukaryote—an organism with one or more cells that have a nucleus and organelles—that isn’t an animal, plant or fungus. —

Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 7 Dec. 2022 In a fateful encounter, a cyanobacterium was engulfed by a eukaryote, a cell that had evolved the capacity for internal organs, and lived on within its membrane. —

Lucy Jakub, The New York Review of Books, 1 Dec. 2020 But a deeper mystery surrounds the emergence of the nucleus; no one even knows whether that ancient archaeon was already a kind of proto-eukaryote with a nucleus, or whether the nucleus came later. —

Quanta Magazine, 25 Nov. 2020 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'eukaryote.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.