Photoautotroph

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    an organism, such as all green plants, that can synthesize its own food from inorganic material using light as a source of energy

Etymology

From photo- (from the combining form φωτω- (phōtō-) of Ancient Greek φῶς (phôs, “light”)) + autotroph, from auto- (from Ancient Greek αὐτο- (auto-, “self-”)) + -troph (from Ancient Greek τροφή (trophḗ, “nourishment”)).

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