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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.
Examples of microbe in a Sentence
IEEE Spectrum, 9 Oct. 2025
Why marine microbes ignore PLA Marine bacteria aren’t universally equipped to break down plastics.
—Tejasri Gururaj, Interesting Engineering, 9 Oct. 2025
This means a single hot spell in the Arctic is likely not enough to warm carbon dioxide-releasing microbes, but a warm season is a different story.
—Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 7 Oct. 2025
On Earth, phosphine occurs naturally as a product of biological processes, and Greaves' team strongly pushed the biological angle to explain their discovery, leading to speculation that there could be microbes living in Venus' toxic clouds.
—Keith Cooper, Space.com, 7 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Microbe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microbe. Accessed 12 Oct. 2025.
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microbe
noun
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microbe
noun
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