slime mold

noun

: any of a group (such as Myxomycetes) of organisms formerly held to be lower fungi but now often considered protists that exist vegetatively in usually moist habitats as mobile plasmodia and reproduce by spores

Examples of slime mold in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When researchers from Japan and Hungary placed a slime mold at one end of a maze and a pile of oat flakes at the other, the slime mold did what slime molds do, exploring every possible option for tasty resources. —Rowan Jacobsen, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024

The team engineered yeast chimeras that had apoptotic enzymes from across the eukaryotic world: from mustard plants, slime molds, humans and the parasite that causes leishmaniasis. —Quanta Magazine, 6 Mar. 2024

From a slime mold measuring just one millimeter tall to a moth resting on a window, the images honored in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year contest draw attention to nature’s little details and spotlight tiny animals that most people would probably walk right past. —Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Jan. 2024

The physical science building is nestled in a forest, where slime molds bloom and trees tilt their leaves in obedience to their own circadian clocks. —Quanta Magazine, 10 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1880, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

slime mold

noun

: either of two groups of organisms that reproduce by spores and form slimy masses composed of amoeboid cells that fuse to form a giant cell with many nuclei or that gather tightly together without fusing

Medical Definition

slime mold

noun

: any organism of the group Myxomycetes

called also myxomycete