parasitic

adjective/ˌpærəˈsɪtɪk/

Frequency rank: #9,862 of 20,003 in the WORDED list (wordfreq data)

Meaning

Living on or in another organism and taking nutrients from it without giving anything in return; dependent on others in a harmful way.

Illustration for the English word “parasitic”

Example sentence

The scientist discovered that the parasitic organism was slowly draining nutrients from its host plant.

Synonyms & related words

More words in ranks 9,801–9,900