Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The science of life and of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution. It includes botany and zoology and all their subdivisions.
  • noun The life processes or characteristic phenomena of a group or category of living organisms.
  • noun The plant and animal life of a specific area or region.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The science of life and living things in the widest sense; the body of doctrine respecting living beings; the knowledge of vital phenomena.
  • noun In a more special sense, physiology; biophysiology; biotics.
  • noun In a technical sense, the life-history of an animal: especially used in entomology.
  • noun Animal magnetism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The science of life; that branch of knowledge which treats of living matter as distinct from matter which is not living; the study of living tissue. It has to do with the origin, structure, development, function, and distribution of animals and plants.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The study of all life or living matter
  • noun The living organisms of a particular region.
  • noun The structure, function, and behavior of an organism or type of organism.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun all the plant and animal life of a particular region
  • noun the science that studies living organisms
  • noun characteristic life processes and phenomena of living organisms

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German Biologie : Greek bio-, bio- + Greek -logiā, -logy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bio- + -logy; a classical compound (modern coinage), with components derived from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, "bio-, life") + -λογία (-logía, "-logy, branch of study, to speak"). The term (rather, analogous terms) arose in various European languages c. 1800, but the term *βίολογία did not exist in Ancient Greek.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I can't believe this word is on such a few wordies lists. People should take their biology seriously, I say.

    August 18, 2008

  • I have a

    August 18, 2008

  • qroqqa's first list

    May 18, 2011