METABOLISM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Metabolism

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Metabolism n. (Physiol.)

The act or process, by which living tissues or cells take up and convert into their own proper substance the nutritive material brought to them by the blood, or by which they transform their cell protoplasm into simpler substances, which are fitted either for excretion or for some special purpose, as in the manufacture of the digestive enzymes. Hence, metabolism may be either constructive (anabolism), or destructive (catabolism).

(Biol.) The series of chemical changes which take place in an organism, by means of which food is manufactured and utilized and waste materials are eliminated.

See images of 'Metabolism'

Etymology of 'Metabolism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Metabolism" Quotes from Famous Books

... recovered from coal smoke, for the gas generated by yeast organisms indwelling in the dough and later killed by the heat of baking, their corpses remaining in situ. But even purified carbon dioxide is itself a rather repugnant gas, a product of metabolism whether fast or slow, and forever associated with those life processes which are ...

— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber

Words linked to "Metabolism" : metamorphosis, respiration, metabolous, hemimetaboly, being, fat metabolism, glycolysis, dissimilation, organism, metabolize, inborn error of metabolism, Krebs citric acid cycle, holometaboly, Krebs cycle, holometabolism, hemimetamorphosis, katabolism, catabolism, heterometabolism, citric acid cycle, metabolic process, destructive metabolism, constructive metabolism, internal respiration, tricarboxylic acid cycle, biological process, organic process, cellular respiration, metabolic, heterometaboly, hemimetabolism