anaerobic

Etymology

It is formed borrowed from French anaérobie with the suffix -ic,^[2][3] though Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com derive it from anaerobe,^[4][5] and the Shorter Oxford from aerobic with the prefix an-.^[6][7] The French word was coined in 1863 by Louis Pasteur,^[8][3][2][7] from Ancient Greek ἀν- (an-, “without”), ἀήρ (aḗr, “air”) and βίος (bíos, “life”),^[8][3] as the negative of aérobie.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the nature of an anaerobe, an organism that lives without oxygen: 1878, in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1877,^[4] Etymonline and Barnhart to 1884.^[8][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was coined for microorganisms that live without oxygen, in the wake of Pasteur's work on fermentation.^[2][8][3] English first borrowed his term as anaerobian, recorded as a noun in 1865 and as an adjective in 1879,^[2][8] but anaerobic replaced it, and anaerobian is now rare.^[2] The noun anaerobe followed in 1883, with its ending perhaps remodelled after microbe.^[2] From 1883 the adjective was also used of processes that take place without oxygen, and of conditions that lack it.^[2][4] In 1942 it was first applied to intense, short exercise in which the muscles need more oxygen than the body can supply, the opposite of aerobic exercise.^[2]

Timeline

• 1878 – of the nature of an anaerobe; of or involving anaerobes.^[2]
• 1883 – functioning or occurring without oxygen; lacking oxygen.^[2]
• 1942 – of exercise in which the muscles' demand for oxygen exceeds the supply.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Living, active or occurring in the absence of free oxygen: anaerobic bacteria.^{[9][4][10][2]}
2. Lacking oxygen: The mud at the bottom of the pond is anaerobic.^[4][2]
3. Of or relating to anaerobes.^[9][10][2]
4. Of exercise: short and intense, so that the muscles need more oxygen than the body can supply.^[2]

Word family

• anaerobically

Related words

• aerobic
• anaerobe
• aerobe

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins