extremophile
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See also: extrêmophile
English
Etymology
From extreme + -o- + -phile.
Noun
extremophile (plural extremophiles)
- (ecology) An organism that lives under extreme conditions of temperature, salinity etc; commercially important as a source of enzymes that operate under similar conditions.
- 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page 207:
- They had found the world's first extremophiles – organisms that could live in water that had previously been assumed to be much too hot or acid or choked with sulphur to bear life.
- 2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 95:
- Lichens are 'extremophiles', organisms able to live, from our point of view, in other worlds.
Translations
organism that lives under extreme conditions
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