[f. prec. + -ISM; cf. parasitism.] A commensal condition.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, Introd. 42.
1872. Dana, Corals, i. 24. Now and then an Actinia puts itself on the back of a crab … a kind of association styled commensalism by Van Beneden.
1877. Bennett, trans. Thomé’s Bot. (ed. 6), 267. In the Lichens we have the most remarkable instance in the vegetable kingdom of … symbiosis or commensalism.
