slime mold

noun

: any of a group (such as Myxomycetes) of organisms formerly held to be lower fungi but now often considered protists that exist vegetatively in usually moist habitats as mobile plasmodia and reproduce by spores

Examples of slime mold in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

During extended periods of wet, rainy weather, the grass may become thin and weak due to its inability to manufacture nutrients, but slime mold is rarely deadly to the plant. —Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 10 Sep. 2024

Scientists have used slime molds’ exploration prowess to solve mazes and logic puzzles, to re-create transportation systems, and to inspire efficient computer algorithms. —Mark Popinchalk, Scientific American, 5 Aug. 2024

Inspired by that experiment, the same researchers then piled oat flakes around a slime mold in positions and quantities meant to represent the population structure of Tokyo, and the slime mold contorted itself into a very passable map of the Tokyo subway system. —Rowan Jacobsen, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024

When researchers from Japan and Hungary placed a slime mold at one end of a maze and a pile of oat flakes at the other, the slime mold did what slime molds do, exploring every possible option for tasty resources. —Rowan Jacobsen, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1880, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

slime mold

noun

: either of two groups of organisms that reproduce by spores and form slimy masses composed of amoeboid cells that fuse to form a giant cell with many nuclei or that gather tightly together without fusing

Medical Definition

slime mold

noun

: any organism of the group Myxomycetes

called also myxomycete