photosynthesize
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of photosynthesize
First recorded in 1905–10; photo- ( def. ) + synthesize ( def. )
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:
Some of these animals can photosynthesize like plants; some harvest algae and seawater to make calcium carbonate for their underwater castles; some produce their own light or glow in the dark.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
In a few months, a single leaf emerges, allowing the plant to photosynthesize and rebuild the energy needed for its next bloom, two to three years later.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2025
"So phytoplankton use carbon to photosynthesize while things like mussels also use carbon to build their shells."
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2025
"By altering the expression of these proteins, we can unlock maize's capacity to photosynthesize more efficiently and grow more robustly, even under challenging environmental conditions."
From Science Daily ● May 28, 2024
Its leaves harvest sunlight to photosynthesize, so trees compete by shadowing their neighbors.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
The seaweed grown in acidified water actually grew more, photosynthesized more effectively, and showed no significant increase in drag.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2023
Whether you eat meat or not, that energy that was first photosynthesized has traveled to you through different organisms.
From Salon ● Feb. 10, 2023
The unit was then left on a windowsill, according to New Scientist, where the algae photosynthesized, generating a tiny current of electricity that powered an ARM Cortex-M0+ chip.
From The Verge ● May 16, 2022
The term is less taxonomically specific and more of a catchall, used to refer to any photosynthesizing organism that isn’t a plant.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
Some acoels also have symbiotic algae sharing the space of the animals' organs, and photosynthesizing inside the animals' body.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024
Senel’s team thinks that the asteroid impact threw up clouds of these tiny particles that blocked out the Sun and could have prevented plants from photosynthesizing for up to two years after the impact.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 2, 2023
Those compounds—sugars and starches for example—move up the food chain: Plants and photosynthesizing microbes are eaten by other organisms, which in turn are eaten by even bigger organisms.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 17, 2023
Second, when gases from Earth were introduced into the Martian soil sample, the gases became chemically combined with the soil—almost as if there were photosynthesizing microbes, generating organic matter from atmospheric gases.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
