biogenesis
Syllables: bi·o·ge·ne·sis/bʌɪə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnəsɪs/US/ˌbaioʊˈd͡ʒɛnəsɪs/
biogenesis noun: the principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.
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Noun
biogenesis (usually uncountable, plural biogeneses)
- The principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.
- And thus the hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; […] It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the...1870 September 17, [Thomas Henry Huxley], “The President’s Address”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama, number 2238, London...
- It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally...2013 March–April, Harold J. Morowitz, “The Smallest Cell [letter]”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2017, page 83
- Biosynthesis.
biogenesis meaning in Tamil, Tagalog and Indonesian
biogenesis in Tamil
- உயிர் மரபு, உயிர்ப்பிறப்பு, உயிரின இயல், உயிர் பிறப்பு, உயிர்வழி பிறப்புக் கொள்கை
biogenesis in Tagalog
- principle
- mulambuhay
biogenesis in Indonesian
- principle
- biogenesis
Antonyms of biogenesis
Forms of biogenesis
| plural | biogeneses |
|---|
Origin of biogenesis
From Ancient Greek βῐ́ος (bĭ́os, “life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, source; manner of birth; creation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”)). The words biogenesis and abiogenesis were both coined by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) in 1870 (see the quotation). The word biogenesis was first used by English physiologist and neurologist Henry Charlton Bastian (1837–1915) around 1869 to mean “life-origination or commencement” in an unpublished exchange of correspondence with Irish physicist John Tyndall. However, in an 1871 book, Bastian announced he was adopting a new term, archebiosis, because of the confusion that might be caused by Huxley’s use of biogenesis with a different meaning. Equivalent to bio- + genesis.
Words formed from biogenesis
Questions about biogenesis
- What does biogenesis mean?
- Biogenesis means the principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.
- What is biogenesis in Tamil?
- Biogenesis in Tamil is உயிர் மரபு, உயிர்ப்பிறப்பு, உயிரின இயல். See Biogenesis meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is biogenesis?
- Biogenesis is a noun.
- How do you pronounce biogenesis?
- Biogenesis is pronounced /bʌɪə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnəsɪs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of biogenesis?
- The plural of biogenesis is biogeneses.
Words near biogenesis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: biogenesis (page history and authors); biogenesis (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q7979-Pink Bee-biogenesis.wav.
Cite this entry: “biogenesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/biogenesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.