Word.ws English Dictionary

panspermia

panspermia noun: the hypothesis that microorganisms may transmit life from outer space to habitable bodies; or the process of such transmission.

panspermia: the hypothesis that microorganisms may transmit life from outer space to habitable bodies; or the...
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Noun

panspermia (uncountable)

  1. The hypothesis that microorganisms may transmit life from outer space to habitable bodies; or the process of such transmission.
    • Lederberg's ideas were tinged with Cold War paranoia. In his hands, panspermia came to resemble horizontal gene transfer on a cosmic scale.2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 88

Origin of panspermia

From panspermy + -ia.

Words formed from panspermia

Questions about panspermia

What does panspermia mean?
Panspermia means the hypothesis that microorganisms may transmit life from outer space to habitable bodies; or the process of such transmission.
What part of speech is panspermia?
Panspermia is a noun.

Words near panspermia in the dictionary

  1. panspecific
  2. panspermatic
  3. panspermatism
  4. panspermatist
  5. panspermatists
  6. panspermia
  7. panspermial
  8. panspermic
  9. panspermically
  10. panspermism
  11. panspermist

Source and license

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