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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

biogenesis.

The principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bʌɪə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnəsɪs/Received-Pronunciation/baɪə-/Received-Pronunciation/baɪoʊ-/Received-Pronunciation/biːə-/Received-Pronunciation
  1. The principle that living organisms are produced only from other living organisms.

    uncountable · usually
  2. Biosynthesis.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Ancient Greek βῐ́ος (bĭ́os, “life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, source; manner of birth; creation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”)). The words biogenesis and abiogenesis were both coined by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) in 1870 (see the quotation). The word biogenesis was first used by English physiologist and neurologist Henry Charlton Bastian (1837–1915) around 1869 to mean “life-origination or commencement” in an unpublished exchange of correspondence with Irish physicist John Tyndall. However, in an 1871 book, Bastian announced he was adopting a new term, archebiosis, because of the confusion that might be caused by Huxley’s use of biogenesis with a different meaning. Equivalent to bio- + genesis.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.