animalculist

plural animalculists

1. historicalA believer in the theory that the embryo exists preformed within the spermatozoon; a proponent of animalculism.First known use 18th c.
2. obsoleteSomeone who studies animalcules.First known use 19th c.

   All at once a botanist, already celebrated, proclaimed that he had seen the embryo forming in the grain of pollen and penetrating the ovule with the pollenical tube. This unexpected animalculist was Schleiden.

   1882, “Sketch of Matthias Jacob Schleiden”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 22

comparative more animalculist · superlative most animalculist

1. historicalPertaining to animalculism.First known use 19th c.

   Countering ‘ovism’, the rival ‘animalculist’ school regarded spermatozoa, discovered in semen by Leeuwenhoek, as the true source of conception.

   1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 217