Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA student or professor of biology; one versed in the science of biology.
Sentence Examples
The biologist is proud of his historic discovery.
The biologist concentrated on observing the phenomenon.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ studied how the coral reef species interact with each other.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ studied the behavior of the birds in their natural habitat.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃-der.
Ancient Greek βίος (bíos)
Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-
Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos)
Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂
Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂
Proto-Hellenic *-íā
Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā)
Ancient Greek -λογῐ́ᾱ (-logĭ́ā)bor.
New Latin -logia
New Latin biologialbor.
English biology
Proto-Indo-European *-id-
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti
Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō
Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)
Proto-Hellenic *-tās
Ancient Greek -τής (-tḗs)
Ancient Greek -ῐστής (-ĭstḗs)bor.
Latin -istader.
Old French -istebor.
Middle English -ist
English -ist
English biologist
From biology + -ist.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.[…]A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale."
— 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist, archived from the original on 29 Jun 2015:
"Wildlife biologist Stanley Temple hypothesised that perhaps the dodo tree was dependent on its seeds passing through the digestive system of dodos in order to properly germinate and that the handful of individuals in the 1970s were the last remaining trees from seeds that passed through a dodo in the 1690s-1700s when they went extinct."
— 2017 May 3, Mark Carnall, “Finding zombies, ghosts and Elvis in the fossil record”, in The Guardian: