Definitions

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

  • noun The formation of a new organism through the merging of two or more free-living organisms. Some biologists believe that symbiogenesis is an important mechanism of evolutionary change.

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

  • noun biology The merging of two separate organisms to form a single new organism.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

sym- + bio- + genesis. Coined in German by the Russian lichenologist Konstantin Mereschkowski, in a 1910 paper entitled "Theorie der zwei Plasmaarten als Grundlage der Symbiogenesis, einer neuen Lehre von der Entstehung der Organismen."

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word symbiogenesis.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.