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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

The Schilling lab generated detailed proteome-wide solubility maps from both the test tube and mouse experiments.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 2, 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

It was fascinating to think about all the things you could learn there: Galileo’s acceleration experiment, the dissection of rabbits, and making materials change state in a test tube.

From "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-li Jiang

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

The news simply said that in a test-tube study, ivermectin showed "antiviral" capabilities against omicron.

From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2022

Compared with the landscapes of Devon Island, fistfuls of regolith simulant or even a test-tube moon, Dr. Hörst’s lab planets lack physicality.

From New York Times ● Dec. 28, 2021

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