-plast

The combining form –plast is used like a suffix meaning “living substance,” “cell,” or “organelle.” An organelle is “a cell organ.” The form –plast is often used in scientific terms, especially in biology.

The form –plast comes from the Greek plastós, meaning “formed, molded.” Find out how plastós is related to plasma, plaster, and plastic at our entry for each word.

What are variants of –plast?

The form –plast does not have any variants. However, it is related to the forms –plastic and –plasty, as in fibroplastic and rhinoplasty. Additional related forms include –plasia, –plasy, –and –plasm. Want to know more? Read our Words That Use articles for these forms.

One example of a scientific term that uses the form –plast is lipoplast, “a small particle in plant cytoplasm, especially that of seeds, in which fat is stored.”

The lipo– part of the word means “fat,” from Greek lípos. As we have seen, the form –plast means “organelle.” Lipoplast literally translates to “fat organelle.”

What are some words that use the combining form –plast?

• alloplast
• apoplast
• chloroplast
• cytoplast
• karyoplast
• kinetoplast
• tonoplast

What are some other forms that –plast may be commonly confused with?

• -blast
• -plasm

The combining form chloro– means “green.” With this in mind, what does chloroplast literally translate to?