the.com/lymphocyte
White blood cell with a memory like an elephant and a grudge like an ex.
means A type of white blood cell — including T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells — that drives the immune system's targeted defenses and remembers past invaders so it can respond faster next time.
from Built from Latin 'lympha' (clear water, referencing lymph fluid, itself echoing the Greek water-nymphs 'nymphe') plus Greek 'kytos' (vessel, cell). So the word literally means 'lymph cell' — named simply for the fluid these cells are found swimming in, with the coinage taking shape in 19th-century microscopy as scientists catalogued the blood's cellular zoo.
- two main types
- B cells make antibodies, T cells kill directly
- memory cells
- remember invaders for decades after one encounter
- vaccine basis
- vaccines work by training these cells early
- origin
- made in bone marrow, some mature in thymus