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Parasite   /pˈɛrəsˌaɪt/   Listen
Parasite

noun
1.
An animal or plant that lives in or on a host (another animal or plant); it obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host.
2.
A follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage.  Synonyms: leech, sponge, sponger.



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"Parasite" Quotes from Famous Books



... English advertisements at the backs of native newspapers. St Xavier's boys sometimes brought them in by stealth to snigger over among their mates; for the language of the grateful patient recounting his symptoms is most simple and revealing. The Oorya, not unanxious to play off one parasite against the other, slunk away towards ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... That the stern battle of the seas might cease, And guard Leander to his love in peace. The Fates consent;—ay me, dissembling Fates! They show'd their favours to conceal their hates, And draw Leander on, lest seas too high Should stay his too obsequious destiny: Who like a fleering slavish parasite, In warping profit or a traitorous sleight, Hoops round his rotten body with devotes, And pricks his descant face full of false notes; Praising with open throat, and oaths as foul As his false heart, the beauty of an owl; Kissing his ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... in the ovary. Complete fusion occurs, and the minute embryo of a new plant immediately results. But for some time it is incapable of leading a separate existence, and, like the embryo mammal, it lives as a parasite upon its parent. By the parent it is provided with a protective wrapping, the seed coat, and beneath this the little embryo swells until it reaches a certain size, when as a ripe seed it severs its connection with the maternal ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... own admission, at best 'you' are a false personality forcibly impressed on a helpless mind that never had a ghost of a chance. In effect, you are a parasite living on a host, the reincarnation of an ego that should be ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan

... parasite on the back of an ox ... having found out by actual measurement the circumference of the ox, and by mathematical calculation, the diameter of the ox, and having ascertained that as he inserted his proboscis into the hide of the animal, say the sixteenth ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... ever-present minute spores of the Botrytis infestans eagerly pounce on the sickly plant, fastening themselves on its most diseased parts. The Botrytis infestans is a cryptogamous plant, and is included in the Mucidineous family, (moulds.) It is a vegetable parasite preying upon the living potato plant, like lice or other animal parasites upon the ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot

... Wright were employed collecting insects, and, with those added by the rest of us, the day's collection included all kinds of ants, cockroaches, grasshoppers, mayflies, a centipede, fifteen different species of spider, locusts, a cricket, woodlice, a parasite fly, a beetle, and a moth. We failed to get any of the dragonflies seen, and, to the great sorrow of the crews who landed with us, missed capturing a most beautiful chestnut-coloured mouse with a fur tail. Land crabs, a dirty yellow in colour, were found everywhere, the farther one went inland the ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... tried the pen. "You may grant the freedom of the city to your barbarians," said a wit to him one day, "but not to your solecisms." Undeterred he began a tragedy entitled "Ajax," and discovering his incompetence, gave it up. "And what has become of Ajax?" a parasite asked. "Ajax threw himself on a sponge," replied Augustus, whose father, it is to be regretted, did not do likewise. Nevertheless, it were pleasant to have assisted ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... disease, of which the cause is still unknown, either is or is not inherited. And this is our position in regard to cancer. An overwhelming majority of the evidence so far indicates that it is not a parasite; if it were, of course, we could say positively that it is not inherited. Although we are getting a discouraging degree of familiarity with the process and clearly recognize that it consists chiefly in ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... those same persons are praised by myself, and will continue to be so. Yet, after all, there was also the motive spurring me on to undertake his defence, of which, during the trial, when I appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing just what the parasite in the Eunuchus advised the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... speak Prakrit, more or less refined according to their rank. Whatever may offend propriety, whatever may produce an unwholesome excitement, is excluded; for the hilarity of the audience, there is an occasional introduction on the stage of a parasite or a buffoon. The representation is usually opened by an apologue and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... thou lyest; I never got a Parasite, a Coward. I seeke the Prince or bend in base submission! Ile seeke my grave first. Yf I needes must fall And that the fatall howre is cast of Barnavelt, Just like a strong demolishd Tower ile totter And fright the neighbour Cuntries with my murmour. My ruyns ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... example and his instructions the benefits which he receives. But to a person whose virtue is not high toned this way of life is full of peril. If he is of a quiet disposition, he is in danger of sinking into a servile, sensual, drowsy parasite. If he is of an active and aspiring nature, it may be feared that he will become expert in those bad arts by which, more easily than by faithful service, retainers make themselves agreeable or formidable. To discover the weak side of every character, to flatter every passion ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... may be in the Customs—it is, I think, in that or the Excise—besides another at Lord Lonsdale's table, where this poetical charlatan and political parasite licks up the crumbs with a hardened alacrity; the converted Jacobin having long subsided into the clownish sycophant [despised retainer,—MS. erased] of the worst prejudices of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... uprooting of many of the essentials of real progress and decent living. This brings a spirit of unrest and doubt, and the question whether life pays, and whether it is worth while to make an effort, and whether the Church is of any effect. The minister is looked upon as a professional parasite drawing a salary and having a good time, and in the thought of many is cast aside as ...
— The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13 • Jesse E. Moorland

... occasion for the experiment, I would not question to make a proud man a lunatic in three weeks' time, provided I had it in my power to ripen his frenzy with proper applications. It is an admirable reflection in Terence, where it is said of a parasite, "Hic homines ex stultis facit insanos." "This fellow," says he, "has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France, the region of complaisance and vanity, I have often observed that a great man who has entered a levee of flatterers humble ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... and logs, barges and floats, coming down from the vast forests above when rains and snow-thaws raised the river and its tributaries; but now a long stretch of boom catches what it can of Elk's commerce and is a chartered parasite upon it. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... thou shalt develop all thy faculties to the full, thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable perfection of thy race—and so perfect thy race—this is the first and greatest commandment of nature. But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for perfection in any shape or form. It wants two things—food and shelter. How it gets them is of no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its own account, an isolated, indolent, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... they say, the people will want to work; they will have acquired a new civic spirit; they will work eagerly and cheerfully for the sake of the public good and from their love of the system under which they live. The loafer will be extinct. The sponge and the parasite will have perished. Even crime itself, so the socialist tells us, will diminish to the vanishing point, till there is nothing of it except here and there a sort of pathological survival, an atavism, or a "throwing back" to the forgotten sins of the ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... in Coleridge's Friend which seems to represent the outcome of George Eliot's teaching on most, and not the worst, of her readers:—'The tangle of delusions,' says Coleridge, 'which stifled and distorted the growing tree of our well-being has been torn away; the parasite weeds that fed on its very roots have been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, the cautious and unhazardous labours of the industrious though contented gardener—to prune, to strengthen, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley

... Utopian book before I adopted this. I rejected from the outset the form of the argumentative essay, the form which appeals most readily to what is called the "serious" reader, the reader who is often no more than the solemnly impatient parasite of great questions. He likes everything in hard, heavy lines, black and white, yes and no, because he does not understand how much there is that cannot be presented at all in that way; wherever there is any effect of obliquity, of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... milk of human kindness in him can scarcely abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom she has otherwise no ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley had shrunk from giving a recommendation that was not based on valid evidence, he would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and that would ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... entirely. . . . Sir William pointed out to us all that was very rare or curious, which added much to my pleasure. . . . He showed us a drawing of the largest FLOWER ever known on earth, which Sir Stamford Raffles discovered in Sumatra. It was a parasite without leaves or stem, and the flower weighed fifteen pounds. Lady Raffles furnished him the materials for the drawing. I dined in company with her not long ago, and regret now that I did not make her tell me about the wonders of that region. At the ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... of that very swarm it was, if I mistake not. It had a parasite that called itself Napoleon. And lately, I believe, Another parasite has had the impudence To publish an elaborate account Of our (for so ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... references in Scott's diary to four dogs as attacked by a mysterious disease during our first year in the South: one of these dogs died within two minutes. We lost many more dogs the last year, and Atkinson has given me the following memorandum upon the parasite, a nematode worm, which was discovered later to be the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... Republics strong,—unstain'd fidelity,— A dignity of mind that mark'd unmov'd The unsought honors clustering round his path, And chang'd them into duties. With firm step On the high places of the earth he walk'd, Serving his Country, not to share her spoils, Nor pamper with exciting eloquence A parasite ambition. With clear eye And cautious speech, and judgment never warp'd By fancy or enthusiasm, he pursued An even, upright course. His bounties sought Unostentatious channels, and he loved To help the young who strove ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules, respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends a wedding-feast," says ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... in the pipe connection between the main reservoir and parasite reservoir, and its purpose is to control the flow of air from the main ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous

... paradox if you like, but one that has never yet been refuted by the sermons of cowardly bourgeois or fat priests. For instance: a father accumulates a million by energetic and clever exploitation, and leaves it to his son—a rickety, lazy, ignorant, degenerate idiot, a brainless maggot, a true parasite. Potentially a million rubles is a million working days, the absolutely irrational right to labour, sweat, life, and blood of a terrible number of men. Why? What is the ground of reason? Utterly unknown. Then why not agree with the proposition, gentlemen, that ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... parasite, accepting hermitage hospitality without making proper return." Overhearing this remark, I regretted for the first time that I had obeyed the request to send back my money to Father. With heavy heart, I sought ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... Each parasite, then, as in duty bound, The joke applauded, and the laugh went round. At length Modestus, bowing low, Said (craving pardon, if too free he made), "Sir, by your leave, I fain ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... the heavenly bodies for what they were; they endeavoured to make them the sources of divination. The great school of Alexandria (founded about 300 B.C.), the headquarters of astronomy, became invaded by the spirit of astrology, the bastard science which has always tried—parasite-like—to suck its life from astronomy. Thus from the days of Claudius Ptolemy to the end of the Middle Ages the growth of astronomy was arrested, and it ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... rounding Of the bullet of the earth Whereon ye sail, Tumbling steep In the uncontinented deep." He looks on that, and he turns pale. 'T is even so, this treacherous kite, Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere, Thoughtless of its anxious freight, Plunges eyeless on forever; And he, poor parasite, Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,— Who is the captain he knows not, Port or pilot trows not,— Risk or ruin he must share. I scowl on him with my cloud, With my north wind chill his blood; I lame him, clattering down the rocks; And to live he ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... endowed with unlimited powers, it is worth noting that this claim was boldly challenged by the peoples' organs in the press. Nearly all the journals read by the masses objected from the first to the dictatorship of the group of Premiers, Mr. Wilson being excepted. "The modern parasite," wrote a respectable democratic newspaper,[59] "is the politician. Of all the privileged beings who have ever governed us he is the worst. In that, however, there is nothing surprising ... he is not only amoral, but incompetent by definition. And it is this empty-headed individual who is ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the Menaechmi was recited in the Pope's room, and the Slave, the Parasite, the Pandor, and the wife of Menaechmus performed their parts well. The Menaechmi themselves, however, played badly. They had no masks, and there was no scenery, for the room was too small. In the scene where Menaechmus, seized by command of his father-in-law, who ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... too large among us; strong able-bodied men walking about with no home and nothing to do. This is a dangerous class. Of course, unless the vagrant gets some work to do he will starve or have to leave the country; but this man does not do either. He becomes a parasite and lives of the honest toil of others. Sometimes he lives out of the white man's kitchen, because his sweetheart is the cook; sometimes because his old mother is a wash woman, and sometimes because his sister is a nurse. This is the class, my white friends, that gives you trouble, this is the ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... far. For, if one's nibbled by a gnat Or harvest-bugs or things like that, One seldom keeps it dark; One may enlarge upon the tale If one is gobbled by a whale Or swallowed by a shark; But if you speak about the bite Of this abandoned parasite You're very, very rash; So sure is it to raise a frown I dare not even write it down; I simply put a ——. None but an entomologist Will quite admit the things exist, And generally they insist On using other names; For, when at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... the itch is caused by a parasite was of an epoch making character because it led to the discovery that many, if not most of the diseases by which mankind and also animal kind are afflicted are of a parasitical character. This is as true of the social organism ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... grace; Fain would they lay their grasp on my estates To swell the vast domains which now they hold. The selfsame lust of conquest, that would rob You of your liberty, endangers mine. Ob, friend, I'm mark'd for sacrifice;—to be The guerdon of some parasite, perchance! They'll drag me hence to the Imperial court, That hateful haunt of falsehood and intrigue, And marriage bonds I loathe await me there. Love, love alone—your ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... and the same spirit of sacrifice the new political theory of equality. He throws himself deliberately outside the limits of the society which he abhors—kills, robs, and avenges his brothers. And let anyone question him, he replies: 'A begging hermit, he is a parasite and should be suppressed. One ought not to bury jewels when children are hungry, when mothers weep, and when men suffer from misery. The State makes money. Is it of good alloy? I make it as the State makes ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... ever mint could strike; But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, Have more of motley than their heavy kings. Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine, 710 While Europe wonders at the vast design: There Metternich, power's foremost parasite, Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight; There Chateaubriand[342] forms new books of martyrs; And subtle Greeks[343] intrigue for stupid Tartars; There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,[344] Turns a diplomatist of great eclat, To furnish articles for the "Debats;" ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... working only indirectly for the community and directly for the profit of a private owner, or they themselves are private owners. Every man who has any money put by in the bank, or any money invested, is a private owner, and in so far as he draws interest or profit from this investment he is a social parasite. It is in practice almost impossible to divest oneself of that parasitic quality however straightforward the general ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... some stiff months of typhus-fighting with a medical mission in the early months of the war, and these are impressions of the holiday which they took thereafter among those fateful hills, with a little carrying of despatches, retrieving of stores and a good deal of parasite-hunting thrown in, until they were finally caught up in the tragic Serbian retreat; still remaining, of course, incurably "bright." I think I detect a certain amount of the too-British attitude that contemns what is strange and is more than a little scornful of poverty, official ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various

... without sincere acknowledgments both to my private and public censors for their friendly admonitions. In the after editions, I pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand, and used my best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction; though in truth, these parasite plants of youthful poetry had insinuated themselves into my longer poems with such intricacy of union, that I was often obliged to omit disentangling the weed, from the fear of snapping the flower. From that period to the date of the present work I have ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... "He was a parasite," he sighed, "living off my bounty. But even that did not invite him when he neared the peril of this city. So he turned back. I—I do not blame him," he added ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... the Commons to find four hundred pounds in his napkin at dinner, or in a billet-doux left by the postman. Of course he understood the meaning of it. The ministers helped themselves to sugar-plums worth five thousand pounds. When the Duke of Grafton was at the head of the ministry, that parasite, Tom Bradshaw, who had done some nasty work for the Premier, received an annuity of fifteen hundred pounds and a suite of thirty rooms in Hampton Palace. He is there now, and has had the suite increased to seventy apartments. Not long ago the ministry put out one ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... "must not be an exotic, a parasite, an alien growth, not a flower of beauty transplanted from a conservatory and shown under glass; it must have its roots deep in the neighborhood life, and there my roots must be also. No teacher, be she ever ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... his words. It is a picture of Queen Elizabeth as she is about to trample with disdain on the coat which that snob Raleigh is throwing for her use on the mud before her. This is intended to typify the low parasite nature of the Englishman which has been described in the previous page or two. "And of these calm moralists,"—it matters not for our present purpose who were the moralists in question,—"is there one I wonder whose heart would not throb with pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... try to reason it out! This woman, by her own explanation, can dominate my nervous organism. She can project herself into my body and take command of it. She has a parasite soul; yes, she is a parasite, a monstrous parasite. She creeps into my frame as the hermit crab does into the whelk's shell. I am powerless What can I do? I am dealing with forces of which I know nothing. And I can tell no one of my trouble. They would set me down as a madman. Certainly, ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle

... infested about its nose with a kind of parasite (Lernaea) having two long thin tails. The sailors stated that these animals frequently cause large sores about the nose of the fish, and that when suffering from this, it will allow the sea-birds to sit on ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... the disease remains a mystery. No fungous or other parasite can be detected in the earliest stages. The appearance of the trees leads us to infer that the trouble is internal, due to some derangement of the nutritive or assimilative functions of the plant, but we are unable to correlate this ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume

... in foresight and control may, it is true, be carried along and defended from disaster by the presence of these qualities in the greater organism of which he is a part. The infant is a parasite upon society; it is provided for independently of its own efforts. The child would soon come to grief were its ends not chosen by others and its conduct kept under control. And a vast number of persons ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... parasite in the court of a tyrant," replied Sir John; "and from such a school, Scotland would reject ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Italiens," remarked a low voice. (This was an elderly parasite, one of those persons who show their independence—as they think—by riddling their friends with epigrams.) "Except to the Italiens. And if the dowager cares for anything on this earth but her daughter—it is music. Such a ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... and earth. What are we?—water and earth. Mire is humanity, and holds in itself not only the roots of the tree, but the germ of the flower. A poet who is too delicate to plant his thought in earth must be content to give it but the life of a parasite: it can have no separate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... Canal services. The Sweet-Water Canal, an insignificant ditch full of dirty water, divided the line from the big Canal, and the low trees, which grew along its banks, gave the only pleasing view in a desolate land. The euphemistically named "sweet water" contained a large number of Bilharzia parasite, an interesting little creature, whose ancestors have been found embedded in the Egyptian mummies. It begins its life in a water snail, transfers itself through the mouth and skin to the body of any human being it can, and there makes hay of ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... reported afterwards that the functionaries of St. Petersburg had painted to him the Russian Jew as "a compound of thief and usurer." Pobyedonostzev delivered himself of the following malicious observation: "The Jew is a parasite. Remove him from the living organism in which and and on which he exists and put this parasite on a rock—and he will die." While thus justifying before the distinguished foreigner their system of destroying the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... caterpillar has been stung and bad an egg placed in its skin by a parasite, before pupation. In such case the pupa is destroyed by the developing fly. Throughout one winter I was puzzled by the light weight of what appeared to be a good Polyphemus cocoon, and at time for emergence amazed by the tearing and scratching inside the cocoon, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... de Sigognac's part, at which the comedians were greatly astonished, as well as deeply touched, was not so unpremeditated as it seemed; he had been thinking about it for some time. He blushed at the idea of being a mere parasite, living upon the bounty of these honest players—who shared all they had with him so generously, and without ever making him feel, for a moment, that he was under any obligation to them, but—rather that he was conferring ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... ghastly touch picture. Remember, I have sometimes travelled over a dusty road as far as my feet could go. At a sudden turn I have stepped upon starved, ignoble weeds, and reaching out my hands, I have touched a fair tree out of which a parasite had taken the life like a vampire. I have touched a pretty bird whose soft wings hung limp, whose little heart beat no more. I have wept over the feebleness and deformity of a child, lame, or born blind, or, worse still, mindless. If I had the genius of Thomson, I, too, could ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... in that one could imagine, short of being in a fit of delirium tremens? Here is a fellow-creature of mine and yours who is asked to see all the glories of the firmament brought close to him, and he is too busy with a little unmentionable parasite that infests the bristly surface of a bee to spare an hour or two of a single evening for the splendors of the universe! I must get a peep through that microscope of his and see the pediculus which occupies a larger space in his mental vision than ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... by cattle; for when the tsetse-fly has ceased to be dangerous cattle may come in. It appears that the fly kills cattle not by anything poisonous in its bite, but because it communicates to them a minute parasite which lives in the blood of some kinds of game, and which is more pernicious to cattle than it is to the game. Accordingly, when the game vanishes, the fly either vanishes also or becomes comparatively harmless. ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... the mistletoe, I cannot forbear to mark the coincidences that run through the popular notions of a country in all ages. Pliny, in his very exact account of the druidical rites, tells us, when the archdruid mounted the oak to cut the sacred parasite with a golden pruning-hook, two other priests stood below to catch it in a white linen cloth, extremely cautious lest it should fall to earth. One is almost tempted to fancy that Shakspeare was describing a similar scene when he ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various

... ii., p. 270.).—I have just received, in full blossom, a very fine spray from a luxuriant plant of this parasite growing on an apple tree in the gardens of Farmley, the seat of William Lloyd Flood, Esq., in the county of Kilkenny. This plant of mistletoe has existed at {513} Farmley beyond the memory of the present generation; but Mr. Flood's impression, communicated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various

... pass into the hands of her deadly enemies. Three important sees had lately become vacant, that of York, that of Chester, and that of Oxford. The Bishopric of Oxford was given to Samuel Parker, a parasite, whose religion, if he had any religion, was that of Rome, and who called himself a Protestant only because he was encumbered with a wife. "I wished," the King said to Adda, "to appoint an avowed Catholic: but the time is not come. Parker is well inclined to us; he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... sky, Nor bends the bulrush, as it loiters by Thro' long green walls of forest trees, that throw Unwavering shadows in the flood below; And droops from topmost boughs (like garlands dight By elfin hands) the gaudy parasite: Crowning the wave with flow'rs; and high above, The tall acacia moves, or seems to move Its feathery foliage in the enamor'd air, That seems, tho' all unheard, to linger there: Might'st fancy all, the earth, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... branch. As yet other palms, which were plumed at the summit like an ostrich wing; or as the smaller ones at their base, spreading out into fans of emerald green. Again, as the forest giants which far overhead were the arches of a watercourse, like the nave of a Gothic cathedral. And even the parasite vines were of the same Titan designing, for they bound the girders of the vault in a dense mat of leaves and woven twigs, while underfoot the carpet was soft inches deep with fern and moss. As for the flowers—Jacqueline wanted to pluck them all, to wreathe the wondering fawns, as ladies with ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... suggested some unpleasing reminiscences of his lost popularity and faded glory. Some thirty years ago, those very walls received him like a second Hampden, the undaunted defender of his country's rights;—on last Monday he entered them a broken-down unhonoured parasite. Gazing on the black and smouldering ruins before him—he perhaps compared them to his own patriotism, for he was heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... "if it has a shell and is able to look out for itself, why doesn't it? Yet the book says that it always attacks a fish and lives as a parasite ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... in overwhelming him with the gifts best calculated to shatter his courage. It matters not whether our past has been happy and noble, or lugubrious and criminal, there shall still be great danger in allowing it to enter, not as an invited guest, but like a parasite settling upon us. The result will be either sterile regret or impotent remorse; and remorse and regrets of this kind are equally disastrous. In order to draw from the past what is precious within it—and ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... malaria parasite to that of recurrent fever is noted in the work of Sacharoff. He states that there exists in the blood of those suffering from recurrent fever a haematozoon, which is most prominent after the fever has begun ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... point in this connection is that Agaricus melleus becomes in these cases a true parasite, producing fatal disease in the attacked timber trees, and, as Hartig has conclusively proved, spreading from one tree to another by means of the rhizomorphs under ground. Only the last summer I had an opportunity of witnessing, on a large scale, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... is normally a parasite of the peritoneal cavity, and is probably transmitted from one horse to another by some biting insect which becomes infected by embryos ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds—from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or kingbird, and what a gulf between its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its irregular manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... race, refused to marry him unless she could obtain her father's consent to the union. Old Goldberg, duly approached on the matter, flatly forbade his daughter to have anything further to do with that fortune-hunter, that parasite, that beggarly pick-thank—such, Sir, were but a few complimentary epithets which he hurled with great volubility at his ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of the external conditions, or of habit, or of the ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... again, all the varieties are not affected with the same degree of violence; it is more marked in its action on the round yellows than the reds, and on the latter rather than the pink. But the symptoms even of the same malady differ, the parasite's attacks on the tissues being dissimilar. Oak galls are produced from the prickings of insects; now around the same larva often four varieties of galls are recognized. In the case of consumption in cattle, the disease marches slowly; in that of pigs ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... the French came to take his part in fighting for the old country. There can be no fear for a country, says Scott, where even the beggar is as ready to take up arms as the noble. The bluegown, in short, is no waif and stray, no product of social corruption, or mere obnoxious parasite, but a genuine member of the fabric, who could respect himself and scorn servility as much as the highest members of the social hierarchy. Scott, as Lockhart tells us, was most grievously wounded by the insults of the Radical mob in Selkirk, who cried 'Burke Sir Walter!' in the place where ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... oar, and Brazier followed suit, at the same time glancing toward their last night's halting-place to see if their men were within reach to come and row and enable him to make an effort to obtain some of the green, bulbous-looking stems and flowers of the lovely parasite which had taken his attention. But they were as unobtainable as if they were a hundred miles away, for it would have taken them days to cut a way to opposite where the boat was now being held against the swift stream, ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... and whatever performs some necessary function, and cannot be discarded, is a safe nucleus for many a parasite, a starting-point for many new experiments. So the family, in serving to keep the race alive, becomes a point of departure for many institutions. It assumes offices which might have been allotted to some ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... away with a frown he met Gwynne's eyes traveling from the same direction. "I didn't ask him," he said apologetically. "Hate men too well dressed. Looks as if he posed for tailors' ads in the weeklies. Never could stand the social parasite anyhow, but Aileen Lawton asked Isabel to let her bring him, as they are going to open the ball to-night with some new ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... have tricked and deceived a woman. You have deceived an honorable man into a dishonorable venture. You have brought disaster on your own country. You are no more than a common adventurer. You are the parasite to whom we ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... essay is more against the practices of the parasite than gulosity. It is entitled The art of living at the cost of others. Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:—'Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more sparingly, and are less curious ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... he certainly had been unjust to that well meaning girl. And was she really so worthless as he had on first sight adjudged her? There might be exceptions to the rule that a parasite born and bred can have no other instructor or idea but those of parasitism. She was honest and earnest, was eager to learn the truth. She might be put to some use. At any rate he had been unworthy of his own ideals ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... thousands of individuals, of which, however, only one acts as master, while the others, in perpetual captivity, provide nourishment for themselves and their master. This master is a fungus of the order Ascomycetes, a parasite which is accustomed to live upon the work of others; its slaves are green algae, which it has sought out, or indeed caught hold of, and forced into its service. It surrounds them, as a spider does its prey, ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to let the potsherds be flung at his head. This was at that time a formal trade in Athens; and it is certainly no mere poetical fiction which represents such a parasite as expressly preparing himself for his work by means of his books of witticisms and anecdotes. Favourite parts, moreover, are those of the cook, who understands not only how to boast of unheard-of sauces, but also how ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... is not a girl alive, certainly not an American girl, who is wholly lacking in some sort of ability. The parasite type (who is growing rare in these days, by the way, for it is now the fashion to "do things") either fastens herself upon complacent relatives or friends when deserted by fortune, or drifts naturally into the half-world, always abundantly ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... fitted out the fleet in view of possible contingencies, and De Witt and De Ruyter could not resist the temptation of revenging the defeat of 1666 and the sack of Terschelling by a raid on the Thames and Medway. It was the dishonesty and incapacity of the King and his parasite Court that laid England open to the shameful disaster that dimmed for all time the glory of Monk and Rupert's victory. But even after De Ruyter's exploits at Chatham the Dutch had no hope of continuing the war, and within a few weeks of the disaster ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... the branches, and the hoya carnosa, the yam, the blue-blossomed Thunbergia, the vanilla (?), and other beautiful creepers, conceal the stems, while nearly every parasitic growth carries another parasite, but one sees here a filament carelessly dangling from a branch sustaining some bright-hued epiphyte of quaint mocking form; then a branch as thick as a clipper's main-mast reaches across the river, supporting a festooned trailer, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... this sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home a parasite. Let me know how old Dame Kormer behaves as a bride, and that you will not grudge her to me. There are many things about which I should like to write to you, but I ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer

... the interests of their respective favourites, there arose between them a contention, which was usually determined by an appeal to arms, and followed by the assassination of the unsuccessful competitor. Vitellius, by being a parasite of all the emperors from Tiberius to Nero inclusively, had risen to a high military rank, by which, with a spirit of enterprise, and large promises to the soldiery, it was not difficult to snatch ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... he ever had—first inheritance of a few thousand dollars, next the old family home, and, latterly the last shreds of his self-respect and manhood. The "gang" had cleaned him out. The broken gambler had turned drunkard and parasite; he had lived to see this day come when the men who had stripped him denied him a seat at the game. His word was no longer to be taken. The daily bouts at cards had arranged itself accordingly, and to him was assigned the ignoble part of the onlooker. The sheriff, the county clerk, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... understood bad Greek better than their own language in its elevation. For Dr. Jortin's[2] Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity made him always writing; yet his writings ought to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things in the world. Good Erasmus's honest mean was alternate time-serving. I never had thought ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... kidney damage, liver failure, meningitis, or respiratory distress; fatality rates are low but left untreated recovery can take months. Schistosomiasis - caused by parasitic trematode flatworm Schistosoma; fresh water snails act as intermediate host and release larval form of parasite that penetrates the skin of people exposed to contaminated water; worms mature and reproduce in the blood vessels, liver, kidneys, and intestines releasing eggs, which become trapped in tissues triggering an immune response; may manifest as either urinary or intestinal disease resulting ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they do sometimes remark of them ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... alive with a variety of beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild pine, (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in the clefts of the larger trees,) to which they clung, as green and shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red—breasted woodpecker kept drumming on every ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... will: why happy man be's dole. My Brother Are you so fond of your young Prince, as we Doe seeme to be of ours? Pol. If at home (Sir) He's all my Exercise, my Mirth, my Matter; Now my sworne Friend, and then mine Enemy; My Parasite, my Souldier: States-man; all: He makes a Iulyes day, short as December, And with his varying childnesse, cures in me Thoughts, that would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... himself willingly to the passion that consumed him. He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else. He had been used to delight in the grace of St. James' Park, and often he sat and looked at the branches of a tree silhouetted ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... secretary of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, to whom we are indebted for the specimen presented here, captured this bird at Micco, Brevard Co., Florida, in April, 1889. He says he found a peculiar parasite in ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... medinensis) is a very troublesome parasite, which sometimes grows to a length of three feet. It occurs in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan, as ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... cheating his old father, and by all manner of knavish tricks procures him money for the gratification of his passions; (as this character plays a principal part, I shall shortly make some further observations on it;) the flatterer or accommodating parasite, who, for the sake of a good meal, is ready to say or do any thing that may be required of him the sycophant, a man whose business it was to set quietly disposed people by the ears, and stir up law-suits, for the conduct of which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... In those days he had been married, and driven his wife and infant daughter in a pony trap. What were the steps of his declension? No one exactly knew. Here he was at least, and had been, any time these past ten years, a sort of dismal parasite upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from a tortoise," resumed Cortlandt, "they may allow us to stalk them. We are in their eyes like hippocentaurs, except that we are part of a tortoise instead of part of a horse, or else they take us for a parasite or ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... a parasite—I'm a parasite," and he ran off screaming, making a detour in order to avoid the street where Cecilia's father had a second-hand store. Oh, if she had seen him running through the street crying like a baby—that would have been worse than the ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... is to the parasites of tuberculosis and cancers that I devote myself, and for seven years, that is, since I was house-surgeon, my comrades have called me the cancer topic. I have discovered the parasite of the tuberculosis, but I have not yet been able to free it from all its impurities by the process of culture. I am still at it. That is to say, I am very near it, and to-morrow, perhaps, or in a few days, I may make a discovery that will ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... made of open ornamental iron-work, and through that we entered a court, or patio, as they I called it. Nothing could be more lovely or deliciously cool than was this small court. The building on each side was covered by trellis-work; and beautiful creepers, vines, and parasite flowers, now in the full magnificence of the early summer, grew up and clustered round the windows. Every inch of wall was covered, so that none of the glaring whitewash wounded the eye. In the four corners ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope

... folded sheet of paper, and showed what looked like a dry blade of grass. The wheat, he said, on certain farms in his Company's territory had begun to suffer from a strange disease; here was an example of the parasite-eaten growth; no one yet had recognised the disease or ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... possibly be favorites of worldly Fame—that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblage of multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity of virtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and ever obsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears are deaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams

... the servants by making them an occasional small present, and always gossiping with them for a few minutes before going into the drawing-room. This familiarity, by which she uncompromisingly put herself on their level, conciliated their servile good-nature, which is indispensable to a parasite. "She is a good, steady woman," was ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... brass plates. There are more brass-plates to the acre in the thoroughfares which diverge from Collins Street than could be found in any other city of the world. The brass-plate, as all the world knows, is the badge of the non-producer—the parasite, the middleman, agent, call him what you will—the man who wears a tall hat and black coat, and who lives in a villa, and lives on and by the products of the labour of others. As society is constituted he is an essential when he exists in reasonable numbers. In Melbourne ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... cattlemen were incredulous, but Blaze maintained his point with emphasis. "It's true. They're a grave disappointment to every kind of parasite." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... ponds stole many a secret path, veined with clumsy roots, shadowed with the thick bush of many a clustering parasite, and echoing sometimes beneath from the hollowed shelter of coot or water-rat. Lilies floated in circles about the ponds, like the crowns of sunken queens, and sometimes a bird broke the silence ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... compilation of ancient authors. A century after Albucasis came the great physician Avenzoar (1113-1196), with whom he divides about equally the medical honors of the western caliphate. Among Avenzoar's discoveries was that of the cause of "itch"—a little parasite, "so small that he is hardly visible." The discovery of the cause of this common disease seems of minor importance now, but it is of interest in medical history because, had Avenzoar's discovery been remembered a hundred years ago, "itch struck in" could hardly have been ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... English authors, for a few cents. The rags, of course, fall to pieces, and are tossed into the waste-paper basket, and thus a habit of desultoriness and of abstention from books worth styling books grows and grows, like a noxious and paralysing parasite, over the American intellect. In this way our pleasant vices are made instruments to plague us, and the condition of the law, which leaves the British authors at the mercy of the Aldens and Monros of the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... through to-day is well studded with fine trees, among which the mhowa abounds more than usual. The parasite plant, called the bandha, or Indian mistletoe, ornaments the finest mhowa and mango trees. It is said to be a disease, which appears as the tree grows old, and destroys it if not cut away. The people, who feel much regard for their trees, cut these ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, or at ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... the consumers of the product, and, as its minor premise, that the industry in question does not pay; that is, that it cannot reproduce a capital equal in value to that which it consumes plus the current rate of profit. Hence every such industry must be a parasite on some other industry. What is the other industry? Who is the other man? This, the real question, ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... firmer has the conviction become. In fact, China's failure to adopt a modern currency system is perhaps even less a sinning against light than our failure to adopt the Torrens system of registering land titles. The man who makes a living by changing money and investigating its value is no more a parasite than the man who makes a living changing titles or investigating their value; the hindrance of trade and easy transfer of property is no more excusable in one case than the other; and the 90 per cent, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on the highway of life—a mere loafer by the wayside—slothful, indolent—slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of places—the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere striving for place and ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... for a little distance. Its nets brought up numerous specimens of polypi and curious shells of mollusca. Some precious productions of the species of delphinulae enriched the treasures of Captain Nemo, to which I added an astraea punctifera, a kind of parasite polypus often found fixed ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... There are a thousand reasons to say that all toil merits its wage, that every man who devotes his energies to providing for his life should have his place in the sun, and that he who does nothing useful, does not gain his livelihood, in short, is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error than to make gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work—be that work done by strength of muscle, warmth of heart, or concentration of mind—is precisely that for which no one can pay us. Nothing better proves ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... merely a flat platform of a few interlaced twigs, through which the eggs are visible from below. Why, we ask, are some birds so careless or so unskilful? The European cuckoo, like our cowbird, is a parasite, laying her eggs in the nests of other birds; so, perhaps, neglect of household duties is in the blood. But this style of architecture seems to answer all the requirements of doves and herons, and, although with one sweep of the hand we can demolish one ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... a great poet and writer in general, of whom Dr. Johnson has said, in those familiar words in his epitaph, that he touched nothing which he did not adorn, and whose character has been very much misunderstood, chiefly by reason of the misrepresentations of Boswell. This parasite of Johnson, who has given us one of the most entertaining books of biography ever written, was jealous not only of Goldsmith's literary reputation, so far as it might rival that of his special idol, but also of the real hold which Goldsmith, because ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... connection above the need for self-help and self-reliance. The real paradox is that any Irishmen, Unionist or Nationalist, should tolerate advisers who, however sincere and patriotic, avowedly regard Ireland as the parasite of Great Britain; who appeal to the lower nature of her people; to the fears of one section and the cupidity of both; advising Unionists to rely on British power and all Irishmen on British alms. A day will come when the humiliation will be seen in its true light. Even now, I do venture ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... built up of individuals, and its whole worth must depend on the quality of those individuals. If they are not fully developed and finely tempered by high responsibilities and perpetual struggles, all social effort is fruitless, it will merely degrade the individual to the helpless position of a parasite. The individual is born alone; he must die alone; his deepest passions, his most exquisite tastes, are personal; in this world, or in any other world, all the activities of society cannot suffice to save his soul. Thus it is that the individual must ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... breeding as well as to the flowing manner in which he wore his hair. In elucidating the meaning of the initials "H.S.," Florio still more coarsely indicates our country-bred poet, and accuses him of being a parasite, a bloodsucker, and a monster of lasciviousness. His abusive descriptions are given in Latin and Italian phrases commencing with the letters H and S. His reason for using the letter H no doubt being that there is no W in either Italian or Latin, H being its nearest ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... just a fish," said the Professor shaking his head at the light in Stanley's eyes. "Some sort of giant parasite that inhabits the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... injuries, living in the midst of three or four families of her relations, and meditating vengeance for the bruising of her amour-propre, and for her wounded vanity!"[*] The second received several names in turn. It was first called "Le Vieux Musicien," next "Le Bonhomme Pons," and then "Le Parasite," a title on which Balzac said he had decided definitely. However, Madame Hanska objected, as she declared that "Le Parasite" was only suitable for an eighteenth-century comedy, and the book appeared in April, 1847, as "Le Cousin Pons." Though intensely ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... a luxury and comfort-loving parasite," she answered deliberately, "because my father gladly pays my accounts at Lucille and Worth and Reville, because I have never learnt to do without things. And please remember this. My father, so far as I am concerned, has no faults. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... there is one preliminary. Be sure you are not one of the people readily susceptible to its poison. If you are, leave this luxuriant parasite alone and let some one else struggle with it. Its poison is most virulent in the spring when the leaves are just unfolding. Later in the summer it is not so treacherous. Tearing it up by the roots, burning over old stone fences infected with it, keep it from ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... with the Volucella, a large fly whose costume, striped with brown and yellow bands, gives it a rude resemblance to the wasp. Obliged, if not for its own sake at least for that of its family, to force itself into the wasp's dwelling as a parasite, it deceitfully dresses itself, we are told, in the livery of its victim, thus affording the most curious and striking example of mimicry; and naturalists insufficiently informed would regard it as one of the greatest ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... I was with dangerous ideas, and an impossible style, defeat was inevitable. My English was rotten with French idiom; it was like an ill-built wall overpowered by huge masses of ivy; the weak foundations had given way beneath the weight of the parasite; and the ideas I sought to give expression to were green, sour, and immature as ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore



Words linked to "Parasite" :   ectoparasite, follower, endoparasite, ectozoon, plant life, entozoon, epizoan, parasitic, parasitic plant, malaria parasite, being, flora, entozoan, parasitical, parasite yew, leech, endozoan, organism, host, plant, epizoon, ectozoan



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