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microbial

microbial

14 6.0
Relating to tiny living things like bacteria, viruses or fungi
  • adjective
  • /maɪˈkroʊbiəl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : microbiano
  • Researchers studied how microbial activity affects soil health and plant growth.
  • microbial ecology
  • microbial community
  • microbial growth

I think everyone needs to look everywhere and see where these microbial signals are going.

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Examples

  • And we've got evidence of ancient rock, ancient microbial life on Earth going back billions of years.

  • So there's really this profound impact this microbial community has on our entire body.

  • There are more microbial cells on and in our body than there are human cells.

  • I think everyone needs to look everywhere and see where these microbial signals are going.

    ZOE
  • I think everyone agrees that having too few microbial species living in US is not a good idea.

  • Nearly all of the causes are related to the essential microbial needs discussed earlier.

    Academic text (1999)
  • A considerable challenge is understanding microbial interactions with each other, with predators, and with the environment.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Here we review progress in the application of molecular techniques to study microbial communities in freshwater environments.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Throughout history, water supplies have been endangered by microbial organisms, but today's contaminants are far worse.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • What we have noticed with the deforestation, there was actually a change in the soil microbial community that also produce methane or consume methane.

Synonyms

microbiotic
vsmicrobial
  • Specialized
1 7.9

Relating to tiny living things like bacteria that are too small to see

focuses on being characteristic of those organisms rather than caused by them
microbic
vsmicrobial
  • Specialized
7.2

Relating to very small living things like bacteria or viruses

is the same meaning but a different form of the word

Surface Forms

microbial positive

Morphology

microbial = microbe (transparent) = microbe + al

The adjective is a regular and semantically clear formation from the noun 'microbe' plus '-al', meaning 'relating to microbes'.

Etymology

The word microbial comes from micro- meaning 'small' and bio meaning 'life', as in biology, so it really means 'small life'. That's why microbial is used for tiny living things like bacteria, viruses, or fungi and for the infections or activity they cause.