Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word bi-. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word bi-, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say bi- in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word bi- you have here. The definition of the word bi- will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofbi-, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Having or possessing two of the root word's quality.
biangular is having two angles or corners, biantheriferous is having two anthers, bicardial is having two separate hearts, bikont is a eukaryotic cell with two flagella; thought to be the ancestor of all plants
biacetabular is relating to both acetabula, biallelic is of or pertaining to both alleles of a gene, bicaval is relating to both veins of the vena cava
Being different in two ways with respect to the root.
biadjoint is adjoint in two different ways, biaffine is affine in two different ways, biclonal is having cell markers from two different cell lines
bifurcate is to divide or fork into two channels or branches, bicapitate is to divide something equally between two people or organisations, bicarinate is dividing into two points at the end
bibrow is a pair of eyebrows which do not meet in the middle, as opposed to a unibrow, bicomplex is composed of a pair of complex numbers having certain defined properties
Usage notes
In an old, common method used to indicate the presence of an acidic hydrogen, sodium hydrogen sulfate is called "sodium bisulfate" and sodium hydrogen carbonate is called "sodium bicarbonate". This method is not recommended by IUPAC and does not denote a “doubling up” of a specific group, which is reserved for the Greek prefix di-, as in carbon dioxide(“CO2”).
The prefix bi in the older system comes from the observation that there is two times as much carbonate (CO3) in sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and other bicarbonates as in sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and other carbonates.
As a prefix for periods, bi- is ambiguously used to mean either “once every two periods” or “twice every period”; this is particularly acute for biweekly, bimonthly, and biannual. To avoid ambiguity, semi- or twice can be used to unambiguously mean “every half period” (thus twice every period) or “twice every period”, but there is no general way to refer unambiguously to “once every two periods”. In some cases a separate word is unambiguous, as in fortnightly(“every two weeks”), or biennial(“every two years”), but there is no word that unambiguously refers to “every two months”. Due to the ambiguity, some prefer to use explicit phrases, like “every two months” or “twice a month”.
^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “bi-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 71
While there have been efforts to popularize the use of this prefix in scientific and technological coinages, currently, its range of use is very limited, and so, it is found only in a small number of words.
This prefix often corresponds to an English possessive ’s appended to the preceding word. For example, Diné bizaad means literally “the People their-language”, equivalent to “the People’s language” (i.e., Navajo language).
A productive prefix usually used to form verbs and adjectives, especially verbs with the sense “around, throughout” or makes transitive verbs from intransitive verbs, adjectives and nouns.