extremophile

See also: extrêmophile

English

Etymology

From extreme +‎ -o- +‎ -phile.

Noun

extremophile (plural extremophiles)

1. (ecology) An organism that lives under extreme conditions of temperature, salinity etc; commercially important as a source of enzymes that operate under similar conditions.
   • 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page 207:

     They had found the world's first extremophiles – organisms that could live in water that had previously been assumed to be much too hot or acid or choked with sulphur to bear life.

   • 2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 95:

     Lichens are 'extremophiles', organisms able to live, from our point of view, in other worlds.

Translations

organism that lives under extreme conditions

• Catalan: extremòfil m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 嗜極生物／嗜极生物 (shìjí shēngwù)

• Dutch: extremofiel (nl) m
• Finnish: ekstremofiili (fi)
• French: extrêmophile (fr)
• Greek: ακρόφιλος m (akrófilos)
• Italian: estremofilo m
• Polish: ekstremofil (pl) m
• Portuguese: extremófilo m
• Russian: экстремофи́л (ru) m (ekstremofíl)
• Spanish: extremófilo m
• Swedish: extremofil c

See also

• acidophile
• alkaliphile
• barophile / piezophile
• halophile
• hyperthermophile
• mesophile
• microaerophile
• polyextremophile
• psychrophile
• thermophile