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{%type%} Definitions

WordNet 3.0Copyright Princeton University
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Short "hint"

A plant or animal that lives on or in another plant or animal and gets food from it (e.g. fleas). Also: a person who lives at another's expense without paying that person back in any way.

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Usage examples (37)
  • The really serious things are earning one's living so as not to be a parasite and loving one's neighbor.
  • At what point does the term parasite come into play?
  • ‡ The term parasite is often applied to a person who takes advantage of other people and fails to offer anything in return.
  • Yeah, you have a pretty good chance of catching some kind of parasite from the food here.
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The Open Dictionary of English is a collaborative project, based on Open Source materials, LearnThat resources, and partner APIs.
We give special thanks to our LearnThat volunteers, as well as Princeton University and Wiktionary for their Open Source word data. We're also grateful for the support given by Google, Wordnik.com, Dictionary.com, Stands4.com and YouTube, OEDILF.com, Kylescholz.com, Best-Practice.com, Forvo.com, as well as the generous Creative Commons community.