microbe
Americannoun
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microbes
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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microbelessadjective
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microbialadjective
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microbianadjective
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microbicadjective
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nonmicrobicadjective
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unmicrobialadjective
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unmicrobicadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of microbe
1880–85; < French < Greek mīkro- micro- + bíos life
Explanation
Microbe is a somewhat outdated way for scientists to talk about the tiny bugs that cause diseases. When you get the flu, you can blame a microbe. In the nineteenth century, the idea that germs caused illness was brand new, and doctors referred to both germs and microbes interchangeably. The word microorganism is more scientifically precise, and in fact microbe is a shortened form of that long, Greek-rooted word. Mikro means "small," and in microbe it's combined with bios, or "life."
Vocabulary lists containing microbe
Words to Live By: Bio
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Ecology - Middle School
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Earth Science - Middle School
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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:
They managed to "tame" the microbe in the laboratory and make it fix N2 at temperatures above 90 °C.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
Like any pandemic, the Black Death was simultaneously a biological and a social event—shaped by both the innate characteristics of a microbe and such all-too-human factors as political systems, religious beliefs and public-health responses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
"Wheat gluten and casein are recognized as safe in a way a microbe is not, in a regulatory sense, so this is an easier way to protect public health," Hsiao said.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 7, 2026
The inner core of solid tumors is made up of dead cells and lacks oxygen, creating the perfect conditions for this microbe to multiply and spread.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 24, 2026
The specific antibodies that we gradually build up against a particular microbe infecting us make us less likely to get reinfected once we become cured.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
In boglands near Gullåkra, organic material such as wood, bone, skin and even clothing were preserved due to a lack of oxygen and the suppression of microbes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The US space agency announced last year that its Perseverance rover had found potential biosignatures, markings on rocks possibly made by ancient microbes.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
Researchers using different extraction techniques produced fractions with different structures and different levels of utilization by gut microbes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
University of Oregon biologists have brought prehistoric proteins back to life, reconstructing molecules that date back as far as 160 million years and naturally attack microbes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
The dirtiest of all tricks for passive carriage is perpetrated by microbes that pass from a woman to her fetus and thereby infect babies already at birth.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
