What does "decomposer" mean?

A substance or an organism, such as a bacterium or fungus, which carries out the process of decomposition of organic material.

How do you pronounce "decomposer"?

Pronounced //diːkəmˈpəʊzə(ɹ)//.

//diːkəmˈpəʊzə(ɹ)// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A substance or an organism, such as a bacterium or fungus, which carries out the process of decomposition of organic material.
"Admitted farm dung is a slow decomposer, but we have moisture in the dung and heat in the soil to bring about decomposition […]"

"Admitted farm dung is a slow decomposer, but we have moisture in the dung and heat in the soil to bring about decomposition […]"

From decompose + -er.

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