“heat shock”

We have one entry that includes the term heat shock.

heat shock protein

noun

: any of a group of molecular chaperones (see chaperone entry 1 sense 3) that are produced especially in cells subjected to stressful conditions (such as high temperature) and that serve to stabilize proteins and ensure proper assembly and folding of proteins

See the full definition

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of verbose

See Definitions and Examples »

Test Your Vocabulary

What did you just call me?

  • brown chihuahua sitting on the floor with squinting eyes looking at the camera
  • Before we went to her house, Hannah told us her aunt was a flibbertigibbet.
Name That Thing

You know what it looks like… but what is it called?

TAKE THE QUIZ
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

Pick the best words!

PLAY
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
illustration of alice and tweedledee and tweedledum
Guess the Literary Image We show you the art, you guess the literary work....
See All