Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Aerobic
/ɛˈroʊbɪk/adjective
Requiring oxygen, said of organisms, of metabolism, or of exercise.
The Greek roots
ἀήρ
aḗr
air
βίος
bíos
life
Literally: “living in air”
The story of the word
Pasteur coined aérobie in 1863 for the microbes that need air, having found others that fermented happily without it and named those anaérobies. The word stayed inside microbiology for most of a century. Physiologists then applied it to muscle metabolism, the fitness industry took it from them, and a term for bacteria now appears on treadmill displays.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
anaerobicaerobicsaerosolsymbiosis
In a sentence
Aerobic bacteria do the work in the upper layer of the filter bed.