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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

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

From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025

But always, there is the very good chance of restoring order to your test tube universe.

From Slate ● Dec. 28, 2024

Daniel Perez, an influenza researcher at the University of Georgia, is doing his own test tube study of pasteurization of milk spiked with a different avian influenza virus.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 22, 2024

Observing a single molecule provides information that is often obscured when looking at thousands of molecules in traditional so-called "ensemble" experiments in a test tube.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024

The discovery thrilled physicists around the world, not least Marie Curie, to whose deathbed the Joliots brought a test tube of the first artificially produced radioelement.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

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

Ten years ago this week, Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues published the results of a test-tube experiment on bacterial genes.

From New York Times ● Jun. 27, 2022

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

From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2022

That lady has achieved true immortality, both in the test-tube and in the hearts and minds of scientists the world over, since the value of HeLa cells in research, diagnosis, etc., is inestimable.

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