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• test tube
  test tube

  noun

  a hollow cylinder of thin glass with one end closed, used in chemical and biological experimentation and analysis.
• test-tube
  test-tube

  adjective

  produced in or as if in a test tube; synthetic or experimental.

test tube

¹ American  

noun

test tubes plural

1. a hollow cylinder of thin glass with one end closed, used in chemical and biological experimentation and analysis.

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test-tube ² American  

[test-toob, -tyoob] / ˈtɛstˌtub, -ˌtjub /

adjective

1. produced in or as if in a test tube; synthetic or experimental.

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test tube British  

noun

1. a cylindrical round-bottomed glass tube open at one end: used in scientific experiments

2. (modifier) made synthetically in, or as if in, a test tube

   a test-tube product

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test tube Scientific  

/ tĕst /

1. A cylindrical tube of clear glass, usually open at one end and rounded at the other, used as a container for small amounts of a substance in laboratory tests and experiments.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• test tubes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of test tube¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Origin of test-tube²

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

You can buy a little extra test tube to help your sorting process by watching about 90 seconds of ads.

From Slate • Dec. 28, 2024

Their daughter, Natalie Tomlinson, was born in 1983 - the first Welsh "test tube baby".

From BBC • Nov. 23, 2024

Daniel Perez, an influenza researcher at the University of Georgia, is doing his own test tube study of pasteurization of milk spiked with a different avian influenza virus.

From Science Magazine • Apr. 22, 2024

Observing a single molecule provides information that is often obscured when looking at thousands of molecules in traditional so-called "ensemble" experiments in a test tube.

From Science Daily • Apr. 11, 2024

Sometimes I hear strange sounds, something like a bubbling test tube and a sigh of steam pipes, a breath of air.

From "Legend" by Marie Lu