Header image of wall of bricks Open menu Close menu

-trichous

Hairy; having hair.

Greek thrix, trikho‑, hair, plus ‑ous.

A variety of specialist adjectives contain this, usually in reference to cilia or flagella on the surface of microorganisms: peritrichous (Greek peri, about, around), a bacterium that has flagella distributed over the whole cell surface; hypotrichous (Greek hupo, under), having cilia mainly on the lower part of the body; monotrichous (Greek monos, alone), having a single flagellum; lophotrichous (Greek lophos, crest), having several flagella in a bundle at one end of the cell.

Copyright © Michael Quinion 2008–. All rights reserved. Your comments are very welcome.