Standard Lemma guide

liposome

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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  • CMU ARPABET: L IH1 P AH0 S OW2 M Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

An aqueous compartment enclosed by a bimolecular membrane, typically of phospholipid; a lipid vesicle.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: biochemistry, biology, chemistry, microbiology, natural-sciences, physical-sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

an artificially made microscopic vesicle into which nucleic acids can be packaged; used in molecular biology as a transducing vector

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: vesicle, cyst

History

Etymology

From lipo- (“fat”) + -some (“body”). From Ancient Greek λίπος (lípos, “fat”) and Ancient Greek σῶμα (sôma, “soma”).

Across languages

Translations

4 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Mandarin: 脂質體 /脂质体 — an aqueous compartment
  • Chinese Mandarin: 微脂粒 (wéizhǐlì) — an aqueous compartment
  • French: liposome — an aqueous compartment
  • Japanese: リポソーム (riposōmu) — an aqueous compartment