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, p. 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.

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