metabolism

/mɪˈtab.ə.lɪz.əm/US/məˈtæb.əˌlɪz.əm/

metabolism noun: the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.

Noun

metabolism (countable and uncountable, plural metabolisms)

The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.
- The metabolisms of aerobic bacteria require oxygen
(broadly) The rate at which these processes occur for a given organism
- Small animals have a much higher metabolism than large animals because they lose more body heat
(broadly, figuratively) The processes that maintain any dynamic system.
- The results of this generalized speedup of the corporate metabolism are multiple: shorter product life cycles, more leasing and renting, more frequent buying and selling, more ephemeral consumption patterns, […]1980, Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, page 230

Proper noun capitalized: Metabolism

Metabolism

A post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth.

metabolism meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

metabolism in Hindi

complete set of chemical reactions that occur in living cells: चयापचय cayāpcay

metabolism in Tamil

complete set of chemical reactions that occur in living cells: வளர்சிதைமாற்றம் vaḷarcitaimāṟṟam

metabolism in Marathi

complete set of chemical reactions that occur in living cells: चयापचय cayāpcay

metabolism in Bengali

বিপাক

More languagesFewer languages

metabolism in Telugu: జీవక్రియ jīvakriya
metabolism in Malayalam: ഉപാപചയം upāpacayaṁ
metabolism in Kannada: ಚಯಾಪಚಯ cayāpacaya
metabolism in Gujarati: ચયાપચય cayāpacya
metabolism in Tagalog: kapbisa
metabolism in Arabic: أَيْض ʔayḍ, تَمْثِيل غِذَائِيّ tamṯīl ḡiḏāʔiyy, اِسْتِقْلَاب istiqlāb
metabolism in Malay: ungkai bina
metabolism in Persian: متابولیسم metâbolism
metabolism in Vietnamese: trao đổi chất, biến dưỡng

Examples of metabolism in a sentence

Catabolism is a destructive metabolism that involves the breakdown of molecules and release of energy.
The vitamin B complex is vital to metabolism.
They need to watch out for underreplacement of magnesium because an adverse effect of the medication is impaired magnesium metabolism.

All 40 example sentences with metabolism

Forms of metabolism

plural	metabolisms

Plural of metabolism: metabolisms

Origin of metabolism

From Ancient Greek μεταβολή (metabolḗ, “change”) + -ism, from μεταβάλλω (metabállō, “to change, to alter”) + -η (-ē, action noun suffix).

Questions about metabolism

What does metabolism mean?: Metabolism means the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.
What is metabolism in Hindi?: Metabolism in Hindi is चयापचय (cayāpcay). See Metabolism meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is metabolism?: Metabolism can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce metabolism?: Metabolism is pronounced /mɪˈtab.ə.lɪz.əm/ (UK).
What is the plural of metabolism?: The plural of metabolism is metabolisms.

Words near metabolism in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: metabolism (page history and authors); Metabolism (page history and authors); metabolism (Bengali 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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-metabolism.wav.

Cite this entry: “metabolism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metabolism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.