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
How to use organism in a sentence
In this approach, those sections function like a barcode, he says, uniquely identifying each organism whose DNA is found in the seawater.
Scientists are tracking down deep sea creatures with free-floating DNA | Kat Eschner | November 5, 2020 | Popular-ScienceExactly how those nanoplastics could affect an organism remains unknown.
Polluting microplastics harm both animals and ecosystems | Alison Pearce Stevens | November 3, 2020 | Science News For StudentsThe “alien-like creatures”, as he described them, created a long, tubular structure that moved through the water as a single organism.
More than 20 types of organisms found on whale falls also have been found in other extreme locations.
Whales get a second life as deep-sea buffets | Stephen Ornes | October 15, 2020 | Science News For StudentsConsider interoceptive systems, which regulate processes within an organism like heart rate to hormonal changes.
Our Mind-Boggling Sense of Smell - Issue 91: The Amazing Brain | Ann-Sophie Barwich | October 14, 2020 | Nautilus
The causal agent is probably organismal, but has as yet escaped detection.
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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