Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various organisms that require extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, or chemical concentration, as in very cold or salty environments, in order to thrive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun biology An
organism thatlives underextreme conditions oftemperature ,salinity etc; commercially important as asource ofenzymes that operate under similar conditions.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word extremophile.
Examples
-
The word extremophile, after all, means literally a lover of extreme places.
First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011
-
The word "extremophile," after all, means literally a lover of extreme places.
-
The word extremophile, after all, means literally a lover of extreme places.
First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011
-
And should we ever actually find some kind of extremophile alien life there, be it bacteria or something more evolved, who knows what would happen if we don't protect ourselves adequately?
Watch the trailer for Martian, a new graphic novel by Clay Rodery about madness on Mars Paul 2009
-
Scientists have traveled to the most extreme environments on earth – from deep-sea vents to Siberian volcanoes – to bio-prospect for "extremophile" micro-organisms that can digest wood and plant wastes to be fermented into fuel.
Climate Change Opportunity Fred Krupp 2008
-
The "extremophile" bacteria were found in a briny lake in eastern California in the US.
BBC News - Home 2010
-
Eureka to look for "extremophile" alien-like life, possibly intelligent, in the vicinity of San Francisco.
The Register 2009
-
High-temperature 'extremophile' microbes, like those in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, US, would have survived at greater depths, down to their limit of about 4 km.
-
'extremophile' microbes, like those in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, would have survived at greater depths, down to their limit of about 4 km.
-
To enter, explore, and ultimately understand the world of microbial extremophiles, you need to be, inside your head, something of a human extremophile yourself.
First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011
richroc commented on the word extremophile
Typically biological, pertaining to organisms living in extreme conditions... but I think there's some fun metaphorical connotation in there. Suggested to me by a friend who alluded to his penchant for working late nights on difficult assignments by referring to himself as a "vocational extremophile".
March 24, 2007
uselessness commented on the word extremophile
I love this one! I wonder if the second syllable is meant to rhyme with stem or stream. I prefer the latter, of course, though it's probably wrong. :-)
March 26, 2007
oroboros commented on the word extremophile
David Attenborough pronounces it 'stream' in the Planet Earth series.
August 26, 2007
mollusque commented on the word extremophile
Outside his little window flap, frozen in the airless air, archaea, superbugs, and extremophiles live on nothing, in darkness, below zero, simply copying.
--Richard Powers, 2007, The Echo Maker, p. 448
November 7, 2008