polyzoic, a.
(pɒlɪˈzəʊɪk)
[f. Polyzoa + -ic. So F. polyzoique.]
1. Zool. Pertaining to or of the nature of the Polyzoa; composed of a number of individual zooids constituting a ‘colony’, compound, colonial.
| 1855 Eng. Cycl., Nat. Hist. III. 858/2 The Polyzoic type [of Mollusca] itself presents five subordinate modifications in the five principal orders of the group. 1861 Hulme tr. Moquin-Tandon ii. ii. 60 Duvernoy believed in the polyzoic nature of the Tænias and similar animals. 1903 [see polypsychic]. |
b. In Sporozoa, Applied to a spore which produces many germs or sporozoites.
| 1901 G. N. Calkins Protozoa 153 The archispores..form a definite number of sporozoites, varying from one (monozoic) or two (dizoic) to many (polyzoic). |
2. Anthropol. Characterized by a belief in many imaginary living beings.
| 1886 Encycl. Brit. XX. 367/2 Perhaps the best name for this first stage of religious development might be the ‘polyzoic’ stage. |
So polyzoism (-ˈzəʊɪz(ə)m), the character of being polyzoic (sense 1).
| 1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. vi. 179 It may be called the theory of polyzoism or multiple monadism. 1903 Myers Hum. Personality I. Gloss., Polyzoism, the property, in a complex organism, of being composed of minor and quasi-independent organisms (like the polyzoa or ‘sea-mats’). |