extremophile
nounEtymology From extreme + -o- + -phile.
1
Biology, Ecology, Natural sciences Any of many organisms that live under extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, salinity, etc; many are autotrophs; some are commercially important as a source of enzymes that operate under similar conditions.
- 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.2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page 207:
- Lichens are 'extremophiles', organisms able to live, from our point of view, in other worlds.2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 95:
- Derived terms
- extremophilic, hyperextremophile