Symbiosis

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Symbiosis \Sym`bi*o"sis\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. symbi`wsis a living
     together, symbioy^n to live together; sy`n with + ? to live.]
     (Biol.)
     The living together in more or less imitative association or
     even close union of two dissimilar organisms. In a broad
     sense the term includes parasitism, or


  
     {antagonistic symbiosis} or
  
     {antipathetic symbiosis}, in which the association is
        disadvantageous or destructive to one of the organisms,
        but ordinarily it is used of cases where the association
        is advantageous, or often necessary, to one or both, and
        not harmful to either. When there is bodily union (in
        extreme cases so close that the two form practically a
        single body, as in the union of algae and fungi to form
        lichens, and in the inclusion of algae in radiolarians) it
        is called
  
     {conjunctive symbiosis}; if there is no actual union of the
        organisms (as in the association of ants with
        myrmecophytes),
  
     {disjunctive symbiosis}.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  symbiosis
       n : the relation between two different species of organisms that
           are interdependent; each gains benefits from the other
           [syn: {mutualism}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  129 Moby Thesaurus words for "symbiosis":
     accompaniment, accordance, agglomeration, agglutination,
     aggregation, agreement, alliance, articulation, association,
     bipartisanship, bond, bracketing, cahoots, clustering, co-working,
     coaction, coadjuvancy, coadministration, coagency, cochairmanship,
     codirectorship, coincidence, collaboration, collaborativeness,
     collectivism, collectivity, collusion, combination,
     combined effort, commensalism, commensality, common effort,
     common enterprise, communalism, communication, communism,
     communitarianism, community, complicity, concatenation, concert,
     concerted action, concomitance, concord, concordance, concourse,
     concurrence, confluence, congeries, conglomeration, conjugation,
     conjunction, connection, consilience, conspiracy, convergence,
     cooperation, cooperativeness, copulation, correspondence, coupling,
     duet, duumvirate, ecology, ecosystem, ecumenicalism, ecumenicism,
     ecumenism, esprit, esprit de corps, fellow feeling, fellowship,
     gathering, harmony, hookup, intercommunication, intercourse,
     interlinking, joinder, joining, joining of forces, joint effort,
     joint operation, jointure, junction, knotting, liaison, linkage,
     linking, marriage, mass action, meeting, merger, merging, morale,
     mutual assistance, mutualism, mutuality, octet, pairing,
     parasitism, pooling, pooling of resources, pulling together,
     quartet, quintet, reciprocity, saprophytism, septet, sextet,
     simultaneity, solidarity, splice, symbiotics, synchronism,
     synergism, synergy, team spirit, teamwork, tie, tie-in, tie-up,
     trio, triumvirate, troika, unification, union, united action,
     yoking