prokaryotes
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It is thought that prokaryotes were the first cells to appear on Earth.
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.
For hundreds of millions of years, prokaryotes were the only living organisms on the planet.
From Science Daily • Dec. 6, 2025
The researchers examined more than one hundred gene families across multiple biological systems and focused on the traits that separate eukaryotes from prokaryotes.
From Science Daily • Dec. 6, 2025
Analyzing microbes in Tirez soil samples from 2002 and 2021 for a study in Scientific Reports, Fairén and his colleagues found that single-celled organisms called prokaryotes had adapted to thrive in extremely dry sediments.
From Scientific American • May 27, 2023
Three arrows point outward from the ring, pointing at the three domains, Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya, indicating that all three domains arose from a common pool of prokaryotes.
From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015
It has been suggested that flagellae and cilia were once spirochetes that joined up with the other prokaryotes when nucleated cells were being pieced together.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
