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.

Noun

(archaic) Anything, as goods, etc., taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder.

* Bible, Numbers xxxi. 12

And they brought the captives, and the prey , and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest.

That which is or may be seized by animals or birds to be devoured; hence, a person given up as a victim.

* Dryden

Already sees herself the monster's prey .

* Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

[The helmsman] steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk

A living thing that is eaten by another living thing.

* Bible, Job iv. ii

The old lion perisheth for lack of prey .

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= William E. Conner

, title= An Acoustic Arms Race , volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}

The act of devouring other creatures; ravage.

* Shakespeare

Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, lion in prey .

The victim of a disease.