The building blocks of English
Affixes
spir(o)-1
Spiral; coiled.
Latin spira, Greek speira, a coil.
This occurs in a number of names for organisms: a spirochaete (US spirochete)(Greek khaitē, long hair) is a spirally twisted bacterium, especially one that causes syphilis; a spirogyra (Greek gura, round) is a green alga that contains chlorophyll in spiral bands; the shrub called the spiraea is so named from its coiled fruits; spirillum is a bacterium with a rigid spiral structure; spirulina (Latin spirula, small spiral) are filamentous cyanobacteria which form tangled masses, so called from their corkscrew shape.
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