First recorded in 1985–90; from New Latin, from Greek archaîa, neuter plural of archaîos “ancient”; see origin at archaeo- ( def. )
First recorded in 1990–95; from New Latin; see origin at archaea ( def. )
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
What surprised the researchers was that the enzymes responsible for carrying out those reactions do not show the same degree of conservation between bacteria and archaea.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026
Alongside microorganisms commonly found on human skin, the team identified fungi and salt-adapted archaea.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
These tiny organisms form the base of the marine food chain, meaning the activity of ammonia-oxidizing archaea ultimately helps sustain ocean biodiversity.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 11, 2026
These archaea oxidize ammonia, a process that plays a central role in the ocean's nitrogen cycle.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 11, 2026
"These Asgard archaea are often missed by low-coverage sequencing," said co-author Kathryn Appler, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 20, 2026
She has put BP’s U.S. biogas business Archaea up for sale just days after doing the same for its U.K.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
BP completed its purchase of Archaea in December 2022 during a time when it was trying to transition to more renewable energy sources.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
The company, which employs nearly 14,000 people in the UK, confirmed plans to move further away from clean energy, revealing plans to sell off its US renewable natural gas business Archaea.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
"Archaea are often called ancient bacteria," says Spang.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 21, 2023
In Archaea, the isoprene chains have methyl groups branching off from them, whereas such branches are absent in Bacteria and Eukarya.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
The prevailing model holds that eukaryotes arose when an Asgard archaeon formed a symbiotic relationship with an alphaproteobacterium.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 20, 2026
In every place, copies of the Borg co-occurred with DNA linked to a methane-oxidizing archaeon called Methanoperedens.
From Science Magazine ● Jul. 15, 2021
He is part of a team that spent a decade trying to determine the physical shape of a particular protein in a tiny bacteria-like organism called an archaeon.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2020
In the end, they found 17 enzymes from 9 different organisms, including E. coli, an archaeon, the plant Arabidopsis and humans.
From Nature ● Nov. 6, 2018
Mitochondrial merger Eukaryotes have a number of innovations compared to their more primitive archaeon ancestors.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 30, 2015
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
