Jump To:

• petri dish
  petri dish

  noun

  a shallow, circular, glass or plastic dish with a loose-fitting cover over the top and sides, used for culturing bacteria and other microorganisms.
• Petri dish
  Petri dish

  noun

  a shallow circular flat-bottomed dish, often with a fitting cover, used in laboratories, esp for producing cultures of microorganisms

petri dish

American  

[pee-tree] / ˈpi tri /

noun

1. a shallow, circular, glass or plastic dish with a loose-fitting cover over the top and sides, used for culturing bacteria and other microorganisms.

---

Petri dish British  

/ ˈpɛtrɪ /

noun

1. a shallow circular flat-bottomed dish, often with a fitting cover, used in laboratories, esp for producing cultures of microorganisms

---

petri dish Scientific  

/ pē′trē /

1. A shallow, circular dish with a loose cover, usually made of transparent glass or plastic and used to grow cultures of microorganisms. The petri dish is named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri (1852–1921).

---

Etymology

Origin of petri dish

1890–95; named after J. R. Petri (died 1921), German bacteriologist

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

petri dish Petri dish

The by-election was a petri dish that Labour had been watching closely, because if Burnham could beat Reform on that stage, it might signal that he could beat Reform in a general election.

From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2026

I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been times when those 32-ounce tubs just stare at me day after day, haloed by the refrigerator light, moving further from consumable and closer to petri dish.

From Salon ● Apr. 28, 2026

A pilot friend who is crossing the Atlantic from the Canary Islands in a sailboat this month called cruise ships a “floating petri dish.‘

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025

You can see the leopard print pattern in the petri dish where the phage have been making light work of a bacterial infection that modern medicine was struggling to shift.

From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2025

If by “effort” she means writing a check that could send a small village to college, then she definitely put in quite a bit of effort just so I could be a human petri dish.

From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott

It would soon be used quite extensively in Ohio, which became a Petri dish for Dorr’s line.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026

Currently, the standard method for detecting bacterial infections is by trying to grow a sample of it in a Petri dish.

From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2025

A woodsy hike becomes a Petri dish of human nature in “Good One,” writer-director India Donaldson’s tense, revealing and exquisitely composed feature debut about a 17-year-old at the cusp of adulthood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2024

Having a baby via IVF first requires creating an embryo in a Petri dish.

From Slate ● May 7, 2024

Take a sterile Petri dish and invert it upon the laboratory bench.

From The Elements of Bacteriological Technique A Laboratory Guide for Medical, Dental, and Technical Students. Second Edition Rewritten and Enlarged. by J. W. H. (John William Henry) Eyre