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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

See Examples For:

test tube test-tube

It comprised a brick-coloured concoction bubbling away in a test tube.

From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025

There are levels to the game, and on some levels, you don’t see the colors of the marbles that are farther down in the test tube until they are accessible.

From Slate ● Dec. 28, 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

They have shown promise in test tube and animal studies aimed at conditions including heart attacks and wound healing.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 31, 2024

Geisbert poured some of the milky fluid out of the flask into a test tube and then spun it in a centrifuge machine.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

If fertility continues to fall, we may indeed drift toward the world Aldous Huxley imagined—a “brave new world” possible only with test-tube babies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026

Jarrell-Searcy's parents met over a test-tube centrifuge in a laboratory.

From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026

Ten years ago this week, Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues published the results of a test-tube experiment on bacterial genes.

From New York Times ● Jun. 27, 2022

Mills explained to Salon via email that the press release Rogan cited refers to "a test-tube study and has the same strengths and limitations as any test tube study."

From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2022

In Bethesda, Maryland, in the middle of a wide-open warehouse that was once a Fritos factory, he built a glass-enclosed room that housed a rotating conveyor belt with hundreds of test-tube holders built into it.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot