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Parameter vs Parasite - What's the difference?

parameter | parasite |

As nouns the difference between parameter and parasite

is that parameter is parameter while parasite is (pejorative) a person who lives on other people's efforts or expense and gives little or nothing back.

parameter

English

Alternative forms

* parametre

Noun

(en noun)
  • (mathematics, physics) A variable kept constant during an experiment, calculation or similar.
  • (programming) An input variable of a procedure definition, that gets an actual value (argument) at execution time (formal parameter) .
  • Roughly, a tuple of arguments could be thought of as a vector, whereas a tuple of parameters''' could be thought of as a covector (i.e., linear functional). When a function is called, a '''parameter tuple becomes "bound" to an argument tuple, allowing the function instance itself to be computed to yield a return value. This would be roughly analogous to applying a covector to a vector (by taking their dot product (or, rather, matrix-product of row vector and column vector)) to obtain a scalar.
  • (programming) An actual value given to such a formal parameter (argument or actual parameter) .
  • A characteristic or feature that distinguishes something from others.
  • (geometry) In the ellipse and hyperbola, a third proportional to any diameter and its conjugate, or in the parabola, to any abscissa and the corresponding ordinate.
  • The parameter of the principal axis of a conic section is called the latus rectum.
  • (crystallography) The ratio of the three crystallographic axes which determines the position of any plane.
  • (crystallography) The fundamental axial ratio for a given species.
  • Usage notes

    * (the value used to instantiate the name) Some authors regard use of parameter'' to mean ''argument'' as imprecise, preferring that ''parameter'' refers only to the name that will be instantiated, and ''argument to refer to the value that will be supplied to it at runtime.

    Synonyms

    * (value passed to a function) argument * (characteristic distinguishing something from others) distinguishing feature * See also

    Derived terms

    * actual parameter * formal parameter

    See also

    * variable

    parasite

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (pejorative) A person who lives on other people's efforts or expense and gives little or nothing back.
  • (biology) an organism that lives on or in another organism, deriving benefit from living on or in that other organism, while not contributing towards that other organism sufficiently to cover the cost to that other organism.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-03
  • , author= , title=The Smallest Cell , volume=101, issue=2, page=83 , magazine= citation , passage=It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite . This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.}}
    ''Lice, fleas, ticks and mites are widely spread parasites .
  • (literary, poetic) A climbing plant which is supported by a wall, trellis etc.
  • * 1813 , (Percy Bysshe Shelley), Queen Mab , I:
  • Her golden tresses shade / The bosom’s stainless pride, / Curling like tendrils of the parasite / Around a marble column.

    Antonyms

    * commensal (doing no noticeable harm) * mutualist or sometimes symbiote (beneficial)

    See also

    * symbiont

    References

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----