organism
a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.
a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.
any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being: the governmental organism.
any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.
Origin of organism
1Other words for organism
Other words from organism
- or·gan·is·mic, or·gan·is·mal, adjective
- or·gan·is·mi·cal·ly, adverb
- su·per·or·gan·ism, noun
Words that may be confused with organism
- organism , orgasm
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
British Dictionary definitions for organism
/ (ˈɔːɡəˌnɪzəm) /
any living biological entity, such as an animal, plant, fungus, or bacterium
anything resembling a living creature in structure, behaviour, etc
Derived forms of organism
- organismal or organismic, adjective
- organismally, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for organism
[ ôr′gə-nĭz′əm ]
An individual form of life that is capable of growing, metabolizing nutrients, and usually reproducing. Organisms can be unicellular or multicellular. They are scientifically divided into five different groups (called kingdoms) that include prokaryotes, protists, fungi, plants, and animals, and that are further subdivided based on common ancestry and homology of anatomic and molecular structures.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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