Plasmolyzed

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Caused the cytoplasm of a plant cell to shrink and pull away from its rigid wall after it lost water to a strong solution
2. Made a plant cell contract as water left it through osmosis, so the membrane detached from the cell wall
3. Subjected a cell to a concentrated solution so that it lost water and its protoplast separated from the surrounding wall

Etymology: "Plasmolyzed" is the past tense and past participle of "plasmolyze," a verb built from "plasm," a variant of "plasma," with the suffix "-lyze," from the Greek "lysis," meaning loosening or dissolving. In biology, to plasmolyze a cell is to shrink its protoplasm away from the cell wall by placing the cell in a solution more concentrated than its own interior, so water leaves through the membrane. The word therefore describes a precise physical process: the cell's contents pull back from the wall, and the cell is said to have been plasmolyzed. The "lyze" ending is a common scientific pattern, used so that a process named for dissolving or breaking down could be attached to a new coinage. Here it is paired with the Greek-derived "plasm," so the word literally describes the loosening of the living substance inside a cell.

Synonyms: plasmolysed, shrunk, contracted