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-blastic

  1. a combining form meaning “having a given type or number of buds, cells, or cell layers,” or “undergoing a given type of development,” as specified by the initial element:

    holoblastic.



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Word History and Origins

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Example Sentences

She said her son has been in treatment for acute blastic leukemia for more than half of his life.

C.M.L. has three stages: chronic, accelerated and blastic.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastic wormer, Detested, shunn'd by saunt and sinner, How dare ye set your fit upon her Sae fine a lady!

And Dar Hyal succumbed, flinging Asia and the Asiatics to the winds, along with his arms and legs, as he weirdly parodied the tango in what he declared to be the "blastic" culmination of modern dancing.

Dar Hyal, a willing and eager ally, had charged around the flank with his blastic theory of music and taken O'Hay in reverse.

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Words That Use -blastic

What does -blastic mean?

The combining formblastic is used like a suffix with a variety of meanings. Especially in terms from botany, it means “having a given type or number of buds.” In other scientific terms, this meaning is applied metaphorically to mean “having a given type or number of cells or cell layers” or “undergoing a given type of development.”

The form –blastic comes from a combination of two forms. The first is blast, from Greek blastós, meaning “bud” or “sprout.” The second is the suffix ic, from Latin –icus, meaning “having some characteristics of.” Want to know more? Read our Words That Use article for –blast.

Examples of -blastic

A term from zoology that features the form –blastic is triploblastic, “having three primary germ layers, as the embryos of vertebrates.”

Triplo means “triple,” from Greek triplós, while the form –blastic means “having a given number of cell layers.” Triploblastic literally translates to “having triple cell layers.”

What are some words that use the combining form –blastic?

What are some other forms that –blastic may be commonly confused with?

Break it down!

The combining form diplo means “double” or “in pairs.” With this in mind, what does the term diploblastic mean?

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