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• petri dish
  petri dish

  noun

  a shallow, circular, glass or plastic dish with a loose-fitting cover over the top and sides, used for culturing bacteria and other microorganisms.
• Petri dish
  Petri dish

  noun

  a shallow circular flat-bottomed dish, often with a fitting cover, used in laboratories, esp for producing cultures of microorganisms

petri dish

American  

[pee-tree] / ˈpi tri /

noun

1. a shallow, circular, glass or plastic dish with a loose-fitting cover over the top and sides, used for culturing bacteria and other microorganisms.

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Petri dish British  

/ ˈpɛtrɪ /

noun

1. a shallow circular flat-bottomed dish, often with a fitting cover, used in laboratories, esp for producing cultures of microorganisms

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petri dish Scientific  

/ pē′trē /

1. A shallow, circular dish with a loose cover, usually made of transparent glass or plastic and used to grow cultures of microorganisms. The petri dish is named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri (1852–1921).

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Etymology

Origin of petri dish

1890–95; named after J. R. Petri (died 1921), German bacteriologist

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

petri dish Petri dish

You’d assume that the interface—which some people describe as what you’d get if eBay and TikTok had a child—would attract younger users, who grew up in this parasocial, digital petri dish of swiping and typing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

The by-election was a petri dish that Labour had been watching closely, because if Burnham could beat Reform on that stage, it might signal that he could beat Reform in a general election.

From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2026

I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been times when those 32-ounce tubs just stare at me day after day, haloed by the refrigerator light, moving further from consumable and closer to petri dish.

From Salon ● Apr. 28, 2026

Michelle grabs a petri dish that's growing bacteria from a patient with a painful, urinary tract infection that keeps coming back.

From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2025

With so many prisoners working so close together, the factory was a petri dish for snitching.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

It would soon be used quite extensively in Ohio, which became a Petri dish for Dorr’s line.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026

Using a microscopy approach they created themselves, the scientists can zoom in on the outer surface of human cells in a Petri dish.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 4, 2025

A woodsy hike becomes a Petri dish of human nature in “Good One,” writer-director India Donaldson’s tense, revealing and exquisitely composed feature debut about a 17-year-old at the cusp of adulthood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2024

"Asylum seekers have been cooped up… for months and this inhumane treatment acts as a Petri dish for mental health issues in a cohort that are already vulnerable," he said.

From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2022

Raise the cover of the Petri dish very slightly, insert the extremity of the capillary pipette, and deposit the blood on the centre of the agar surface.

From The Elements of Bacteriological Technique A Laboratory Guide for Medical, Dental, and Technical Students. Second Edition Rewritten and Enlarged. by J. W. H. (John William Henry) Eyre