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

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

Michelle grabs a petri dish that's growing bacteria from a patient with a painful, urinary tract infection that keeps coming back.

From BBC • Jun. 27, 2025

As the Salton Sea has become a fertilized petri dish, the prevailing winds have pushed aerosolized bacteria south to communities in the Imperial Valley where people have complained of respiratory issues.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 6, 2024

The camera was facing a petri dish where a gloved hand holding a pipette was adding something to the solution.

From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste