Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A minute life form; a microorganism, especially a bacterium that causes disease. Not in technical use.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A minute living being not distinguished, primarily, as to its animal or vegetable nature. The term is most frequently applied to various microscopic plants or their spores (particularly Schizomycetes), and further has come to be almost synonymous with bacterium. Taken in this latter sense, microbes are regarded as essentially polymorphous organisms, adapting themselves to varied conditions of existence, which in turn influence the form taken by them. For this reason their classification has often varied, since their distinction into genera and species does not yet rest on precise data. Micrococcus, Spirochæte, Bacillus, Leptothrix, Bacterium, Vibrio, Spirillum, and Myconostoc are the genera or form-genera under which most of the forms are known. They are instrumental in the production of fermentation, decay, and many of the infectious diseases affecting man and the lower animals.
Wiktionary
- n. microbiology Any microorganism, but specially said of those microorganisms which are harmful types of bacteria.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Biol.) A microscopic organism; a microorganism; -- particularly applied to bacteria and especially to pathogenic forms.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a minute life form (especially a disease-causing bacterium); the term is not in technical use
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek μικρός (mikros, "small") and βίος (bios, "life"). (Wiktionary)
- French : Greek mīkro-, micro- + Greek bios, life; see gwei- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“[Footnote: The term microbe is simply a word which has been coined to include all of the microscopic plants commonly included under the terms bacteria and yeasts.] has developed with a marvellous rapidity.”
“In its most general sense, the term microbe designates certain colorless algæ belonging to the family Bacteriaceæ, the principal forms of which are known under the name of _Micrococcus.”
“Obviously, your goal as a microbe is to grow and survive.”
“How do you go about deciding which microbe is the most important?”
“I think that microbe is so cute (something you never think you'd hear yourself say)!”
“This month's issue of the always-excellent Smithsonian magazine has a long feature about the history and influence of the Dada art movement, described by artist Tristan Tzara as a "virgin microbe" that spread around the pre-World War I world leaving mind-blowing artifacts of absurdity in its wake.”
“The ethanol toxicity posed another problem, but through the optimization of an existing efflux pump the microbe was able to protect itself.”
365 tomorrows » 2008 » January : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day
“I am SHOCKED that you did not mention that the microbe was a CCC!”
““He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed,” Wasi told the court.”
“But the important part to take away from this is that there are 18 different ways that a microbe can use single point mutations and selection to develop a drug resistance 5 orders of magnitude higher than it started with, each step along the way being beneficial to the microbe, that is.”
Evolution of IC: Evolution of Hormone-Receptor Complexity - The Panda's Thumb
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘microbe’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 346 more...
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Lively Words
quick, quicksilver, cwic, quitch grass, cwice, vivify, viviparous, viper, weever, wyvern, viand, victual and 148 more...
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wildrose's Words
manzanita, eulogy, saporous, sircee, signifier, signified, ambergris, musteline, paralian, aporia, recursion, nebulous and 16 more...
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sound-pretty sounds
words that are beautiful, whether because of sound, meaning, or both.
anomaly, procreate, caboose, linguistics, unapologetic, spontaneity, skittish, cygnet, decimate, harrowing, frumpy, woebegone and 53 more...
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Words from "The Ghost Map"
"The Ghost Map", by steven Johnson, is a fascinating account of the (successful) investigation by two men, John Snow and Henry Whitehead, into the means by which cholera is transmitted, following t...
ghost map, epidemiology, dot map, voronoi diagram, index case, cholera, experimentum crucis, vibrio cholerae, microbe, germ theory, public health, animalcula and 61 more...
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Paste Practice
microbe, lackadaisical, avocation, hapless, fastidious, flamboyant, adroit, laudatory, reticent, admonitory, vociferous, tepid and 25 more...
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Buggin' out
bacteria, antibiotic, spirochete, anthrax, gram positive, gram negative, tuberculosis, bacillus, typhus, rickettsia prowaz..., orientia tsutsuga..., vaccine and 24 more...
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12th Grade Unit 2
euphoria, microcosm, aseptic, euphemism, dyspepsia, macrocosm, dystopia, dystrophy, eugenics, euthanasia, microbe, amoral and 1 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for microbe.
bilby zot Aug 16, 2011
grandperoxide is there a similar word that refers to any microscopic thing? "microbe" was my first thought, but it's specific to lifeforms. i'm told that carl sagan was fond of "mote" (well, for extremely microscopic things). anyone got anything? Aug 15, 2011