Etymology

semiparasitic

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Today it means: Describing a plant that, although it uses photosynthesis, obtains some nutrition from other plants. Full definition →

English parasitic ← Middle French parasite ← Latin parasītus
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*per-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*preh₂-
  7. Proto-Hellenic*pərai
  8. Ancient Greekπᾰρᾰ́ (părắ)
  9. Ancient Greekσῖτος (sîtos)
  10. Ancient Greekπαράσιτος (parásitos)
  11. Latinparasītus
  12. Middle Frenchparasite
  13. Englishparasite
  14. Englishparasitic
  15. English todaysemiparasitic

From semi- + parasitic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.