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Biology vocabulary · Microbiology

Bacteria

Meaning in biology, with examples

/bækˈtɪriə/nounCore term

In biology, bacteria means: Single-celled microorganisms without a nucleus that live almost everywhere, from soil and water to the human gut. Most are harmless or useful; some cause disease.

In Turkish: bakteriler, bakteri

How it is used

Bacteria is the plural; the singular is bacterium. The adjective is bacterial: bacterial infection, bacterial culture, bacterial cell wall. Bacteria are grouped by shape (cocci, bacilli) and by Gram staining (Gram-positive, Gram-negative).

Example sentences

  1. These bacteria grow best at 37 °C, the temperature of the human body.

  2. E. coli is a rod-shaped bacterium that lives in the intestine.

Common collocations

  • bacterial infection
  • bacterial growth
  • gut bacteria
  • Gram-negative bacteria
  • harmful bacteria
  • microorganismA living thing too small to see without a microscope, such as a bacterium, a yeast or a single-celled alga. Viruses are often studied alongside them.
  • prokaryoteA single-celled organism whose cell has no nucleus and no membrane-bound organelles. Bacteria and archaea are prokaryotes.
  • pathogenA microorganism or virus that causes disease in its host, such as certain bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites.
  • cultureA population of microorganisms or cells grown in the lab in a nutrient medium under controlled conditions. As a verb, it means to grow them in this way.
  • virusA tiny infectious particle made of genetic material (DNA or RNA) inside a protein coat. It can only make copies of itself inside a living host cell.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Microbiology

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