Lysed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The breakdown of a cell or substance can occur through either physical damage or biochemical reactions that lead to destruction
2. Cell degradation happens as a result of rupture or disintegration, often initiated by enzymes or external forces
3. The process of decomposition in which a cell or biological structure is disrupted, resulting in the release of its contents into the environment or surrounding medium

Etymology: "Lysed" is the past tense and past participle of "lyse," a verb that English formed by working backwards from a noun. The noun "lysis" came first, borrowed from Greek "lysis," meaning "loosening" or "release," from "lyein," "to loosen." In biology and medicine, "lysis" names the bursting or dissolving of a cell, and the verb "lyse" was back-formed from it: speakers took the familiar noun ending "-is" off "lysis" and treated what was left as a verb. So "to lyse" a cell means to break it open, and "lysed" describes a cell that has been burst in this way. The Greek root has a wider reach than the laboratory. "Lyein" lies behind words such as "analysis," which literally means a loosening apart of something into its parts, and "paralysis," a loosening of the limbs. "Lysis" itself is also used in medicine for the gradual end of a fever or disease, an older sense from the same idea of things coming undone.

Synonyms: broken down, destroyed, decomposed, dissolved, disintegrated

Antonyms: formed, constructed, assembled, integrated, unified