noun
: a protozoan of the sporozoan genus Plasmodium being transmitted to man or to certain other mammals or birds by the bite of a mosquito in which its sexual reproduction takes place, multiplying asexually in the vertebrate host by schizogony in the red blood cells or in certain tissue cells, causing destruction of red blood cells and the febrile disease malaria, or producing gametocytes by sporogony that if taken up by a suitable mosquito initiate a new sexual cycle — compare merozoite , ookinete , phanerozoite , schizont , sporozoite