Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Biomass
/ˈbaɪoʊmæs/noun
The total weight of living matter in a given area, or plant material burned as fuel.
The Greek roots
βίος
bíos
life
μᾶζα
mâza
barley cake, kneaded lump
Literally: “life lump”
The story of the word
The bio- half is plain Greek. The other half travelled further than it looks: English mass comes through Latin massa, which Latin most likely took from Greek μᾶζα, the flat barley loaf that fed the poor. Ecologists began weighing life under this name in the twentieth century, starting with plankton hauls; the fuel sense arrived much later and now dominates the word.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
biologybiopsysymbiosisantibiotic
In a sentence
Termites make up more biomass in that forest than every mammal in it.
The plant burns biomass pellets pressed from sawmill waste.