Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Phytoplankton
/ˌfaɪtoʊˈplæŋktən/noun
The microscopic photosynthesising organisms that drift in sunlit water.
The Greek roots
φυτόν
phytón
plant, growing thing
πλαγκτός
planktós
wandering, drifting
Literally: “drifting plants”
The story of the word
Victor Hensen coined plankton in 1887 from πλαγκτός, wandering, the adjective behind the Πλαγκταί of the Odyssey, the Wandering Rocks. Biologists then split the drift into a plant half and an animal half. Drifting is the definition, not a description of laziness: these organisms cannot hold a position against a current, whatever they do vertically.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1890s
Same family
neophytephytochemicalplanktonzooplankton
In a sentence
A spring bloom of phytoplankton turns the North Atlantic milky enough to see from orbit.