zooplastichttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zooplastic_adj%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezooplastic, adj.
Revised 2017

zooplasticadjective

  1. 1.
    a1855–61
    † That creates or shapes life or living things. Obsolete. rare.
    1. a1855
      It is most likely that under the Zooplastic forces of the vegetal world this synthesis really takes place.
      C. B. Mansfield, Theory of Salts (1865) ii. iii. 136 (note)
    2. 1861
      Vitality, Zooism, or the Zooplastic principle, would seem to be connected with some peculiar modification of matter.
      R. Grattan, Consider. Human Mind ix. 126
  2. 2.
    1872–
    With reference to sculpture, art, etc.: that represents or seeks to represent living beings or animals. rare.
    1. 1872
      The great mimetic instinct underlies all such purpose [sc. the fashioning of figures of living creatures]; and is zooplastic, life-shaping.
      J. Ruskin, Aratra Pentelici ii, in Works vol. III. 31
    2. 1977
      Gaudier..warped stone into a new topology that Ruskin would have called zooplastic.
      Sewanee Review vol. 85 517
    3. 2012
      Indian designs, pastels and browns and pinks, alternately anthropomorphic or zooplastic.
      T. Kosmatka, Games 181
  3. 3.
    1888–
    Designating tissue transplanted from an animal to a human recipient, and the action of transplanting tissue in this way. Cf. xenograft n., xenotransplant n., xenotransplantation n. Now rare.
    1. 1888
      Zooplastic grafts.
      British Medical Journal 18 February 367/2 (heading)
    2. 1929
      The inherent difficulties encountered in heteroplastic and zooplastic grafting of other organs does not offer much encouragement when applied to the parathyroid glands.
      American Journal of Surgery vol. 6 33/1
    3. 1969
      We have eliminated these hazards by using a heterologous zooplastic graft, made of calf bone.
      Acta Neurochirurgica vol. 20 59
    4. 2008
      When Pope Pius XII addressed the Italian Association of Donors of the Cornea in 1956, he distinguished between permissible and morally objectionable ‘zooplastic transplants’.
      S. E. Lederer, Flesh & Blood vii. 198

Originally published as part of the entry for zoo-, comb. form

zooplastic, adj. was revised in June 2017.

zooplastic, adj. was last modified in September 2024.