Definition of "hydroid" []

• Any of numerous characteristically colonial hydrozoan coelenterates having a polyp rather than a medusoid form as the dominant stage of the life cycle. (noun)
• The asexual polyp in the life cycle of a hydrozoan. (noun)
• Of, relating to, or characteristic of a hydroid. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This gigantic creature grows from the small one, called a hydroid, represented in the small cut."
• "They were velella vellella - a hydroid similar to a jellyfish, with the common name of "By-the-wind-sailor"."
• "Trematode ‘nurse’ can develop within itself the very unlike ‘Cercaria’, it will not appear impossible that the egg, or ciliated embryo, of a sponge, for once, under special conditions, might become a hydroid polype, or the embryo of a"