biologist
Americannoun
-
biologists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of biologist
Explanation
A biologist is a scientist who focuses on living organisms, including plants and animals. Wildlife biologists might specialize in studying African elephants. Biologists study a wide variety of life forms, from single-celled organisms to primates, and conduct research in many different areas, from the spreading of pathogens to the details of evolution. A marine biologist studies sea creatures and a microbiologist might study algae or bacteria. The word biologist is rooted in the Greek bios, or "life."
Vocabulary lists containing biologist
"Siberian Survivors" and "Tigers in the Wild"
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: bio
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anim (life, mind, spirit); bio (life)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute landed in the global spotlight in recent weeks—months after the warning—when a biologist who worked at the laboratory died of a mysterious pneumonia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
Maya Khosla, a wildlife biologist for hire and filmmaker and poet between gigs, was getting on-the-job training in a new role: detective.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Lucky for skeptics, Nadira Goffe interviewed a whale biologist about how realistic the film is.
From Slate ● Oct. 19, 2026
"These findings provide the first evidence that psilocybin can selectively reduce escalated aggression in a vertebrate model without suppressing social interaction," added senior author Dr. Suzie Currie, a biologist at The University of British Columbia.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026
Kinda weird that he would hang over the ocean, tagging sharks in the name of science, but he wouldn’t call a biologist to dissect the one he caught, right?
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Livieri, 55, is one of a handful of biologists pulling night shifts across the Great Plains to save the black-footed ferret from extinction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
Once a year, several dozen of these biologists assemble into a strike team, sharing staff and gear across Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
The eggs’ appearance came as a surprise to beachgoers and biologists alike.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
Bloomer contacted biologists and museum curators across the country, asking them to examine their collections for unusually large specimens.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
Especially useful contributions have been made by ecological geographers, cultural anthropologists, biologists studying plant and animal domestication, and scholars concerned with the impact of infectious diseases on history.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
