— protistan /proh tis"teuhn/ , adj. , n. — protistic , adj.
/proh"tist/ , n.
any of various one-celled organisms, classified in the kingdom Protista, that are either free-living or aggregated into simple colonies and that have diverse reproductive and nutritional modes, including the protozoans, eukaryotic algae, and slime molds: some classification schemes also include the fungi and the more primitive bacteria and blue-green algae or may distribute the organisms between the kingdoms Plantae and Animalia according to dominant characteristics.
[ 1885-90; Protista (neut. pl.) name of the kingdom prótistos (masc. sing.) the very first, superl. of prôtos first; see PROTO- ]