Other forms: parasites
A parasite is a living thing that feeds on another and gives nothing back. A blood parasite, parasites in the gut, parasitic worms.
A successful one does not kill its host, which is why the nastiest parasites are usually the newest to their host species. Applied to people it is one of the harshest insults there is. The Greek means one who eats at another's table.
1nounparasiteA living thing that feeds on another and gives nothing back.
“Ticks are parasites that live by sucking the blood of animals.”
parasite is an organism.
Greek parasitos means one who eats beside another — para, beside, plus sitos, food. It first named a hanger-on at dinner.
Latin
parasītus
Middle French
parasite
English, today
parasite
Built from
From Middle French parasite, from Latin parasītus. From Middle French parasite, from Latin parasitus, from Ancient Greek παράσιτος (“person who eats at the table of another”), from noun use of adjective meaning "feeding beside", from παρά (“beside”) + σῖτος (“food”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA