Pro″to‐plasm (?), n. [Proto- + Gr. � form, fr. � to mold.] (Biol.) The viscid and more or less granular material of vegetable and animal cells, possessed of vital properties by which the processes of nutrition, secretion, and growth go forward; the so-called “ physical basis of life;” the original cell substance, cytoplasm, cytoblastema, bioplasm sarcode, etc.
☞ The lowest forms of animal and vegetable life (unicellular organisms) consist of simple or unaltered protoplasm; the tissues of the higher organisms, of differentiated protoplasm.