rod-shaped

rod-shaped (comparative more rod-shaped, superlative most rod-shaped)

1. Shaped like a rod; long and cylindrical.
   • 2008, The Observer, 20 Jan 08:

     Walk-through detectors designed to spot guns, knives and other flat and rod-shaped weapons cost almost £5,000 each.

   • 1999, Paul Campbell, Survival Skills of Native California, page 309:

     In western Nevada at the southern end of Lake Winnemucca a rod-shaped atlatl with weight and engaging hook still attached was discovered around 1961.

2. (biology) Specifically, describing a form of bacterium.
   • 2001, The Guardian, 10 Oct 01:

     Anthrax goes through two very different stages in its life cycle. One is a microscopic rod-shaped bacterium called bacillus anthracis, easy to grow in the lab but fragile and easily killed in the open.

   • 1981, PCL John, The Cell Cycle, page 86:

     S. pombe is a rod shaped organism, and during its cell cycle it grows mostly in length with little change in diameter.

   • 1965, “Small Bacteriophages”, in Advances in Virus Research, volumes 1-11, pages 343–4:

     The rod-shaped E. coli phages share a common host range with the RNA-containing E. coli phages, a coincidence which probably unites unrelated viruses.

• “rod-shaped”, in Wordnik.

• dropheads