extremophile
noun
Did you know?
No, an extremophile is not an enthusiast of extreme sports (though -phile does mean "one who loves or has an affinity for"). Rather, extremophiles are organisms—mostly microorganisms—that thrive in environments once considered uninhabitable, from places with high levels of toxicity and radiation to boiling-hot deep-sea volcanoes to Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have even created a new biological domain to classify some of these extremophiles: Archaea (from Greek archaios, meaning "ancient"). These extremophiles may have a lot in common with the first organisms to appear on earth billions of years ago. If so, they can give us insight into how life on our planet may have arisen. They are also being studied to learn about possible life forms on other planets, where conditions are extreme compared to conditions on Earth.
Examples of extremophile in a Sentence
IEEE Spectrum, 31 Jan. 2011
Water bears aren’t actually extremophiles, more extremo-tolerant.
—Katie Liu, Discover Magazine, 14 Dec. 2023
Exhilarating detections of the first exoplanets in the 1990s, alongside a growing understanding of microbiology and extremophiles, had generated scientific buzz.
—Katie Liu, Discover Magazine, 25 Oct. 2023
But nothing else matches the extremophiles, animals like the dinosaur shrimp and fairy shrimp, that can lay dormant for decades.
—Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 7 Sep. 2023
Even some Earth-dwelling extremophiles—organisms that live in exceptionally harsh conditions—are poorly understood.
—Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 July 2023
Psammophiles themselves are examples of extremophiles, organisms that love extreme environments.
—Frances Vinall, Washington Post, 2 June 2023
Chemical interactions or geologic activity could provide energy for these life-forms, much as deep-sea volcanic vents like those German has discovered provide energy for extremophiles on Earth.
—Rebecca Boyle, Scientific American, 18 Apr. 2023
Some organisms—extremophiles—have adapted to live life in these severe environments.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 15 Apr. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'extremophile.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Extremophile.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extremophile. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.
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