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Petri dish

Petri dish

5 4.1
A shallow round dish with a loose lid used to grow bacteria
  • noun
  • /ˈpɛtri dɪʃ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : plato de Petri
  • In the lab, she placed a sample of the culture in a sterile Petri dish.

So what saved all those many lives wasn't just Fleming's observation in a Petri dish.

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Examples

  • Classic science experiment: you have a Petri dish; on it are a banana, an apple, and a pear.

    Blog text (3)
  • In room 192 of Robbins Hall, a brick building not far from the student union, thousands of microscopic plantlets grow in Petri dishes bathed in pink and fluorescent blue light.

    Academic text (2012)
  • Cell culture is done in in Petri dishes, a lot of plastic and not a lot of surface.

  • Thus far, the particles have only been tested in Petri dishes.

    Academic text (2010)
  • Normal cells require tethering to the bottom of a Petri dish in order to grow cancer cells.

  • So let's start with a picture of these two Petri dishes growing E coli.

  • The short answer is that bacteria love the wet, warm Petri dish you've provided them.

    Blog text (8)
  • And then we put this filter on one of these Petri dishes, and then we can cultivate and count the number of bacteria that was in that ear sample.

  • But one of the things that they can't figure out, because if we put these bone cells in a Petri dish, they don't act the same way as they do in the body.

  • By working to create an inspiring space and filling it with accessible and exciting tools, the spacemaker will have an excellent Petri dish in which to study the best ecosystem for growth.

    Academic text (2014)

How Big

plate glass
13 3.4
watch glass
  • Specialized
5.5
Petri dish
  • Specialized
5 4.1

Surface Forms

Petri dish singular
Petri dishes plural

Morphology

Petri + dish

The form 'Petri dish' transparently signals 'a kind of dish' because of the noun composition with 'dish', but 'Petri' is an eponym/proper name that gives no clue to the technical function. A B1 learner who knows 'dish' may guess it is a type of vessel but would not predict the specialised meaning 'for culturing microorganisms', so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Petri dish gets its name from a German scientist named Julius Petri, who made a shallow round dish to 'grow' bacteria and other tiny living things in the lab. That's why today a Petri dish means the small plate scientists use to 'grow' and study germs.