Abiogenesis

//ˌeɪbaɪəʊˈdʒɛnəsɪs// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The origination of living organisms from lifeless matter; such genesis as does not involve the action of living parents. countable, uncountable

    "And thus the hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; […] It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis of Abiogenesis."

  2. 2
    a hypothetical organic phenomenon by which living organisms are created from nonliving matter wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abiogenyabiogenyautogenesisautogenybiopoesisbiopoiesis

Example

More examples

"From what I've heard, abiogenesis is a phenomenon where life surges from non-living matter."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-, “not-”, the alpha privative) + βῐ́ος (bĭ́os, “life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, source; manner of birth; creation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (“birth; production”)); equivalent to abio- + genesis. The words biogenesis and abiogenesis were both coined by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) in 1870 (see the quotation).

Related phrases

spontaneous generation

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.