What does "endophyte" mean?

Any organism (generally a bacterium, fungus or alga) that lives inside a plant.

What is a synonym for "endophyte"?

Common synonyms include: entophyte, entophyte.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Any organism (generally a bacterium, fungus or alga) that lives inside a plant.
"Take a grass from salty coastal soils, grow it without its fungal endophytes, and it won't be able to survive in its natural salty habitat."

"Take a grass from salty coastal soils, grow it without its fungal endophytes, and it won't be able to survive in its natural salty habitat."

From endo- (“inside”) + -phyte (“plant, growth”). The -phyte suffix refers to the microorganism, not the plant within which it grows.

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