Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn optical instrument used for observing small objects.
nounAny instrument for imaging very small objects (such as an electron microscope).
Sentence Examples
This microscope magnifies objects by 100 times.
"Do you mind my borrowing your microscope?" "No, not at all."
Do you know the difference between a microscope and a telescope?
CEFR Practice Quiz
To see the bacteria in the water sample, the scientist used a powerful ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The young student peered through the ____ to see the tiny cells moving around on the slide in his biology lab class.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *mey-der.?
Ancient Greek μῑκρός (mīkrós)
Proto-Indo-European *speḱ-
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Proto-Indo-European *spéḱyeti
Proto-Hellenic *sképťomai
Ancient Greek σκέπτομαι (sképtomai)
Proto-Indo-European *-ós
Proto-Hellenic *-ós
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Ancient Greek -ος (-os)influ.
Ancient Greek -ός (-ós)
Ancient Greek σκοπός (skopós)
Proto-Indo-European *-eti
Proto-Indo-European *-eyéti
Proto-Indo-European *-esyéti
Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti
Ancient Greek -έω (-éō)
Ancient Greek σκοπέω (skopéō)
Proto-Indo-European *-yós
Proto-Italic *-ios
Old Latin -ios
Latin -ius
Latin -ium
Latin mīcroscopiumlbor.
Italian microscopiobor.
English microscope
From New Latin microscopium and Italian microscopio, from Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós, “small”) + σκοπέω (skopéō, “to look at”), equivalent to micro- + -scope.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"That he might ascertain whether any of the cloths of ancient Egypt were made of hemp, M. Dutrochet has examined with the microscope the weavable filaments of this last vegetable."
— 1837, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume 23, page 222:
"Elsewhere, professionals could enthuse over new precision instruments capable, for instance, of measuring weights down to a tenth of a milligram, or over a host of self-registering thermometers and barometers, microscopes, typewriters, calculators and all sorts of technical and musical devices, including automatic concertinas, edeophones, auto-harps, bigophones and other long-forgotten objects."
— 1978, Jan Romein, The Watershed of Two Eras: Europe in 1900, page 303:
"It has a strong germicidal action, as can be verified by staining and microscoping the pus, the characteristic micro-organisms disappearing rapidly under its use."
— 1897, The Clinical Journal, page 200:
"Wright (1959), using the standard and less laborious technique of microscoping the centrifuged deposit of a sample of urine, found that 21.6% of males attending life insurance examinations had more than 10 red blood cells per high power field (rbc/hpf)."
— 2012, E.J. Zingg, D.M.A. Wallace, Bladder Cancer, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 79: