Parasite1. (n.) One who frequents the tables of the rich, or who lives at another's expense, and earns his welcome by flattery; a hanger-on; a toady; a sycophant.
2. (n.) A plant obtaining nourishment immediately from other plants to which it attaches itself, and whose juices it absorbs; -- sometimes, but erroneously, called epiphyte.
3. (n.) A plant living on or within an animal, and supported at its expense, as many species of fungi of the genus Torrubia.
4. (n.) An animal which lives during the whole or part of its existence on or in the body of some other animal, feeding upon its food, blood, or tissues, as lice, tapeworms, etc.
5. (n.) An animal which steals the food of another, as the parasitic jager.
6. (n.) An animal which habitually uses the nest of another, as the cowbird and the European cuckoo.
Thesaurus Entries
adherent, algae, appendage, attendance, attendant, autophyte, barnacle, bean, beat, bedbug, beggar, bloodsucker, body of retainers, bracken, brown algae, buff, bummer, cadger, cat flea, cavaliere servente, chigoe, climber, cockroach, cohort, conferva, confervoid, cortege, coupon clippers, court, courtier, crab, creeper, dangler, deadbeat, dependent, diatom, disciple, dog flea, drone, entourage, fan, fern, flea, flunky, follower, following, freeloader, fruits and vegetables, fucus, fungus, grapevine, grayback, green algae, gulfweed, hanger-on, henchman, herb, heterophyte, homme de cour, hyena, idle rich, idler, ivy, jackal, jigger, kelp, laze, leech, legume, leisure class, lentil, liana, lichen, liverwort, lounge lizard, louse, lumpen proletariat, mendicant, mite, mold, moocher, mosquito, moss, mushroom, nit, nonworker, panhandler, parasitic plant, parasitize, partisan, pea, perthophyte, phytoplankton, planktonic algae, plant families, public, puffball, pulse, pursuer, pursuivant, red algae, red bug, rentiers, retinue, roach, rockweed, rout, rust, sand flea, saprophyte, sargasso, sargassum, satellite, scrounge, scrounger, sea lentil, sea moss, sea wrack, seaweed, sectary, shadow, smell-feast, smut, spiv, sponge, sponger, stooge, successor, succulent, sucker, suite, supporter, tagtail, tail, the unemployable, the unemployed, tick, toadstool, train, trainbearer, vermin, vetch, vine, votary, ward heeler, weevil, wood tick, wort, wrack