Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The biological study of the functions of living organisms and their parts.
  • noun All the functions of a living organism or any of its parts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun l. Natural philosophy.
  • noun The sum of scientific knowledge concerning the functions of living things.
  • noun A treatise on physiology or the functions of living organisms.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The science which treats of the phenomena of living organisms; the study of the processes incidental to, and characteristic of, life.
  • noun A treatise on physiology.
  • noun the science of the functions and phenomena of the mind, as distinguished from a philosophical explanation of the same.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A branch of biology that deals with the functions and activities of life or of living matter (as organs, tissues, or cells) and of the physical and chemical phenomena involved.
  • noun obsolete The study and description of natural objects; natural science.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun processes and functions of an organism
  • noun the branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French physiologie, from Latin physiologia, from Ancient Greek φυσιολογία (phusiologia, "natural philosophy"), from φύσις (phusis, "nature") + λόγος (logos, "word").

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