Saprophyte

//ˈsæpɹəʊfaɪt// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any organism that lives on dead organic matter, as certain fungi and bacteria.
  2. 2
    an organism that feeds on dead organic matter especially a fungus or bacterium wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
algaeamebicamoebaautophytebacteriabean

Etymology

From sapro- (“putrid matter”) + -phyte (“plant, growth”).

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