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• test tube
  test tube

  noun

  a hollow cylinder of thin glass with one end closed, used in chemical and biological experimentation and analysis.
• test-tube
  test-tube

  adjective

  produced in or as if in a test tube; synthetic or experimental.

test tube

¹ American  

noun

• test tubes
  plural

1. a hollow cylinder of thin glass with one end closed, used in chemical and biological experimentation and analysis.

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test-tube ² American  

[test-toob, -tyoob] / ˈtɛstˌtub, -ˌtjub /

adjective

1. produced in or as if in a test tube; synthetic or experimental.

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test tube British  

noun

1. a cylindrical round-bottomed glass tube open at one end: used in scientific experiments

2. (modifier) made synthetically in, or as if in, a test tube

   a test-tube product

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test tube Scientific  

/ tĕst /

1. A cylindrical tube of clear glass, usually open at one end and rounded at the other, used as a container for small amounts of a substance in laboratory tests and experiments.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• test tubes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of test tube¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Origin of test-tube²

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

test tube test-tube

"Biochemists more than a decade before us showed that TPP1 increases the activity of telomerase in a test tube, but we never knew that this actually happened clinically," he said.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 1, 2026

It comprised a brick-coloured concoction bubbling away in a test tube.

From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025

You can buy a little extra test tube to help your sorting process by watching about 90 seconds of ads.

From Slate ● Dec. 28, 2024

They have shown promise in test tube and animal studies aimed at conditions including heart attacks and wound healing.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 31, 2024

I pulled out the test tubes and test tube rack we’d need for our lab.

From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia

If fertility continues to fall, we may indeed drift toward the world Aldous Huxley imagined—a “brave new world” possible only with test-tube babies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026

Jarrell-Searcy's parents met over a test-tube centrifuge in a laboratory.

From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026

At the time, they were called test-tube babies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2024

The news simply said that in a test-tube study, ivermectin showed "antiviral" capabilities against omicron.

From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2022

In Bethesda, Maryland, in the middle of a wide-open warehouse that was once a Fritos factory, he built a glass-enclosed room that housed a rotating conveyor belt with hundreds of test-tube holders built into it.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot