What does "aerobe" mean?

Any organism (but especially a bacterium) that can tolerate the presence of oxygen, or that needs oxygen to survive.

What is a synonym for "aerobe"?

Common synonyms include: aerobiont, aerobiont, aerobium, amebic, amoeba, anaerobe.

//ˈɛː.rəʊb// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Any organism (but especially a bacterium) that can tolerate the presence of oxygen, or that needs oxygen to survive.
2
an organism (especially a bacterium) that requires air or free oxygen for life wordnet

From French aérobie. By surface analysis, aero- + -obe.

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