microbe

play

noun mi·crobe \ ˈmī-ˌkrōb \

Definition of microbe

:microorganism, germ

—

microbial

play \mī-ˈkrō-bē-əl\ or less commonly microbic play \-bik\ adjective

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Recent Examples of microbe from the Web

While an abundance of these organic chemicals could be produced by life, such as microbes sustaining off of hot volcanic vents on the ocean floor, they also could be produced by natural geological processes.

— jay bennett, Popular Mechanics, "The James Webb Space Telescope Will Study the Solar System's Watery Moons," 25 Aug. 2017
Recently, the cavers came across a new room covered in quartz and giant sheets of microbes, the samples of which were sent to Arizona State University and the University of Arizona for identification.

— jennifer nalewicki, Smithsonian, "Dine 21 Stories Underground in This 345-Million-Year-Old Cavern," 15 Aug. 2017
Besides the feet, which literally covers the most ground, partner sets also tended to share microbes around their torso, navel, and eyelids — the side effect of holding each other close and staring into each other's eyes, apparently.

— lilian min, Cosmopolitan, "Apparently Long-Time Lovers Share Microbe Colonies, Aww?," 3 Aug. 2017
Vice versa, this outer-space safety compliance officer also make sure humans don’t bring back alien microbes or other biological contamination from space travel that could infect the Earth.

— lisa gutierrez, kansascity, "Six-figure job opening: Protect the Earth from aliens, and other planets from Earth," 2 Aug. 2017
Despite common misconception, it was demonstrated that kitchen environments host more microbes than toilets.

— jessica mattern, Country Living, "It's Official, Your Kitchen Sponge Is Gross and Microwaving It Doesn't Make a Difference," 2 Aug. 2017
Imagine a melting pot into which the livestock, the birds, the flies and the people all contribute bacteria and other microbes – a Petri dish for the creation of new threats to human health.

— mark johnson, jsonline.com, "Pathway to peril," 13 July 2017
Shipman encoded a GIF of Muybridge’s horse into DNA, and then inserted those strands into living microbes using CRISPR.

— ed yong, The Atlantic, "Scientists Can Use CRISPR to Store Images and Movies in Bacteria," 12 July 2017
The units heat and cool reservoirs of water, and researchers suspected that as the device ventilated heat or pumped water to the blankets, tiny droplets became aerosolized and spread through the operating room, carrying microbes with them.

— michael price, Science | AAAS, "We may now know how a rare, lethal microbe infected dozens of people across the globe," 12 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'microbe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

A hint of the Greek word bios, meaning "life", can be seen in microbe. Microbes, or microorganisms, include bacteria, protozoa, fungi, algae, amoebas, and slime molds. Many people think of microbes as simply the causes of disease, but every human is actually the host to billions of microbes, and most of them are essential to our life. Much research is now going into possible microbial sources of future energy; algae looks particularly promising, as do certain newly discovered or created microbes that can produce cellulose, to be turned into ethanol and other biofuels.