First recorded in 1975–80; cyano- 1 + bacteria
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The largest forms resemble green or red algae, while the smaller fossils may represent algae, cyanobacteria, or sulfur-oxidizing bacteria.
From Science Daily ● May 12, 2026
He found that Anabaena and some related cyanobacteria contain a system known as ParMR encoded within their chromosomes.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 20, 2026
Scientists estimate that cyanobacteria emerged around 2.9 billion years ago.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
The beauty of the sky contrasts sharply with the water, sometimes blue, but often a murky green from cyanobacteria or stained black.
From BBC ● Jan. 29, 2026
"Understanding stress-responsive biosynthesis in extremophilic cyanobacteria may accelerate industrial biotechnology for natural pigment and antioxidant production," says Prof. Kageyama when describing the motivation behind the work.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 13, 2026
Cyanobacteria commonly colonize Sargassum, forming a partnership that provides the algae with an extra nitrogen source.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 19, 2025
Cyanobacteria played a crucial role in transforming the Earth from its initial oxygen-free state to a modern, oxygen-rich system in which increasingly complex life is possible.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
This is in contrast to earlier studies that concluded that Cyanobacteria acquired these genes from Alphaproteobacteria at a late stage in their evolution.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
The new study further revealed that the common ancestor of Cyanobacteria already possessed both genes more than 2.4 billion years ago, when oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere during the so-called Great Oxidation Event.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
Cyanobacteria are photosynthesizers, while Actinobacteria are a group of very common bacteria that include species important in decomposition of organic wastes.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
Within the cyanobacterium, the protein organizes itself as tiny threads or nanofibers.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 27, 2024
The most feared—and studied—cause of these freshwater “algal” blooms is a genus of cyanobacterium called Microcystis.
From Science Magazine ● Jul. 5, 2022
The two are forever on the trail of these composite symbiotic organisms, which they describe in the book as “an intensive cooperation between a fungus and an alga or a cyanobacterium, and sometimes all three.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2021
Some 2 billion years ago, a single-celled organism in Earth’s primeval ocean engulfed a mitochondrion and a cyanobacterium — and, now able to generate energy and photosynthesize, shunted off to change the world.
From Nature ● Apr. 2, 2019
Genetic and morphological studies suggest that plastids evolved from the endosymbiosis of an ancestral cell that engulfed a photosynthetic cyanobacterium.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
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.
