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biogenesis

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
16
Letters
10
Pronunciation
/bʌɪə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnəsɪs/
See all 7 pronunciations
/bʌɪə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnəsɪs/ · /baɪə-/ · /baɪoʊ-/ · /biːə-/ · /biːoʊ-/ · /-nɪ-/ · /ˌbaioʊˈd͡ʒɛnəsɪs/

Definition of biogenesis

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (uncountable, usually)The principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.
    “And thus the hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; […] It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.”
    “It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.”
See all 2 definitions

noun

  1. (uncountable, usually)The principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.
    “And thus the hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; […] It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.”
    “It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.”
  2. (uncountable, usually)Biosynthesis.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Ancient Greek βῐ́ος (bĭ́os, “life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, source; manner of birth; creation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”)). The words biogenesis…

See full etymology

From Ancient Greek βῐ́ος (bĭ́os, “life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, source; manner of birth; creation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”)). The words biogenesis and abiogenesis were both coined by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) in 1870 (see the quotation). The word biogenesis was first used by English physiologist and neurologist Henry Charlton Bastian (1837–1915) around 1869 to mean “life-origination or commencement” in an unpublished exchange of correspondence with Irish physicist John Tyndall. However, in an 1871 book, Bastian announced he was adopting a new term, archebiosis, because of the confusion that might be caused by Huxley’s use of biogenesis with a different meaning. Equivalent to bio- + genesis.

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200+ playable · top: BIOGENIES (12 pts)

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21 words

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