Search for crossword answers and clues

Answer for the clue "The relation between two different kinds of organisms in which one receives benefits from the other by causing damage to it (usually not fatal damage) ", 10 letters:
parasitism

Word definitions for parasitism in dictionaries

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
In biology / ecology , parasitism is a non- mutual symbiotic relationship between species , where one species, the parasite , benefits at the expense of the other, the host . Traditionally parasite (in biological usage) referred primarily to organisms visible ...

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Parasitism \Par"a*si`tism\ (p[a^]r"[.a]*s[imac]`t[i^]z'm; 277), n. [Cf. F. parasitisme.] The state or behavior of a parasite; the act of a parasite. ``Court parasitism.'' --Milton. (Bot. & Zo["o]l.) The state of being parasitic.

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 (context ecology English) Interaction between two organisms, in which one organism (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed. 2 (context figuratively English) A similar interaction between people.

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
n. the relation between two different kinds of organisms in which one receives benefits from the other by causing damage to it (usually not fatal damage)

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1610s, from parasite + -ism . Biological sense is from 1853.

Usage examples of parasitism.

As I explained, the life and intelligence which evolved in the datasphere medium knew no other form of evolution than parasitism, hyperparasitism, and hyper-hyper-hyper-hyperparasitism.

But the Core was aware of the shortcomings of absolute parasitism and knew that the only way it could grow beyond parasite status and parasite psychology was to evolve in response to the physical universe -- that is, to have physical bodies as well as abstract Core personae.

Core personae which survive the Reapers do so not just through parasitism, but through a necrophilic parasitism.

Core, they would have to abandon zero-sum parasitism and discover true symbiosis.

Our exist- e as human beings has largely been defined by the endless dance of fear and parasitism with the Core AI entities.

After the Fall, after the Core lost control of the Hegemony via its dataspheres and far- casters, after the Core lost its greatest computing engine -- its direct parasitism on the billions of human brains as they transited the Void Which Binds via the so-called farcasters -- the TechnoCore had to find a new way to exploit humankind.

With the cruciforms, this parasitism on the human brain has been resumed.

Multiply your personae, miniaturize essential Core memories, and make your parasitism on the human neural networks more direct .

In this epigram, Burroughs suggests that parasitism -- corruption, plagiarism, surplus appropriation -- is in fact conterminous with life itself.

We need to perfect our own habits of parasitism, and ever more busily frequent the habitations of our dead, in the knowledge that every self-perpetuating and self-extending system ultimately encounters its own limits, its own parasites.

Thus parasitism, a form of plant pathology, exists as well for all the higher life-forms.

Culture-parasitism arises in the same way that parasitism arises in politics.

In animal and human parasitism, one of the numerous effects on the host is the loss of nourishment, and Cultural parasitism is analogous.

They are an organic part of every Culture, but parasitism occurs only fortuitously, and not with necessity.

Her life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the meaning of equality.