Skip to main content
chronobiology

chronobiology

1 8.0
The study of the body's natural daily rhythms like sleep and wake times
  • noun
  • /ˌkrɒnəʊbaɪˈɒlədʒi/
  • Specialized
: cronobiología
  • He used to work with Curt Richter before, at Johns Hopkins, and Curt is one of the pioneers of chronobiology.
  • sleep and chronobiology

Examples

  • Researchers in chronobiology study how the body's biological rhythms affect sleep patterns.

  • Understanding chronobiology can help improve work schedules to align better with natural body clocks.

  • The field of chronobiology explores the impact of light on our daily biological cycles.

Surface Forms

chronobiology singular

Morphology

chronobiology = biology (semi-transparent) = chrono + bio + logy

The word is built by adding the learned prefix chrono- to biology, but the resulting technical term is not fully transparent to an average B1 learner.

Etymology

The word chronobiology is made of chrono- 'time', as in chronicle, and biology 'study of life'. So chronobiology is the study of how living things follow daily and seasonal cycles, like sleep patterns or plant flowering.