Zooflagellate

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A single-celled organism that moves using one or more whip-like flagella and feeds like an animal rather than making its own food
2. A protist that propels itself with lashing flagella and behaves like an animal by ingesting other organisms
3. Any microscopic, whip-tailed protozoan that lives freely or as a parasite and obtains nutrition by consuming other life

Etymology: Zooflagellate is a compound built from two parts: "zoo-", from Greek "zōion" meaning "animal," and "flagellate," from Latin "flagellatus," meaning "whipped" or "furnished with a whip." Put together, the name describes an animal that carries a whip, which is exactly what these organisms do. Their single or few long, whip-like tails, called flagella, beat to drive them through water. The "flagellate" half comes from the Latin "flagellum," a small whip, a diminutive of "flagrum," a scourge. English gained the adjective and noun "flagellate" from that Latin base, and in biology it names the whip-bearing microbes. Adding "zoo-" marks out the animal-like members of that group, set apart from plant-like flagellates that photosynthesize.