noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A heterotrophic organism that uses light for energy but cannot use carbon dioxide as its sole carbon source and thus uses organic compounds from the environment.

Etymology

From photo- + heterotroph.

Related phrases

carbon dioxideorganic compound

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