protoplasm
noun
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After the word protoplasm was coined in the mid-19th century for the jellylike material that is the main substance of a cell, it began to be used widely, especially by scientists and others who imagined that the first life-forms must have arisen out of a great seething protoplasmic soup. Since protoplasm includes all the cell's living material, inside and outside the nucleus, it is a less useful scientific word today than more precise terms such as cytoplasm, which refers only to the living material outside the nucleus. But many remain fascinated by the image of that soup bubbling away as the lightning flashes and the volcanoes erupt.
Examples of protoplasm in a Sentence
Michileen Martin, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 June 2025
Most of them are B-movie actors who go Goo Mode for one reason or another — falling into radioactive protoplasm, a pituitary gland disorder, a The Substance situation, the list goes on.
—Bethy Squires, Vulture, 13 Dec. 2024
The bulbous clay forms, dotted with cell-like ovals, suggest protoplasm in a state of continual remaking.
—Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2023
On a computer screen that shows the display from the microscope, Trichoplax looks like a glowing, pulsing orb surrounded by cosmic protoplasm.
—Emily Underwood, The Atlantic, 8 June 2020
Altmann believed that cells themselves came into existence when these granules assembled into colonies and built a shelter of protoplasm around themselves.
—Carl Zimmer, STAT, 30 May 2018
Responding to a moldy sack of protoplasm who writes for the Daily Caller, CNN editor Chris Cillizza leapt to Jacobs’s defense.
—Brian Beutler, New Republic, 26 May 2017
Each tube has virtual protoplasm flowing through it, just as the branches of the slime mould do.
—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 22 Jan. 2010
Cite this Entry
“Protoplasm.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/protoplasm. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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