Alkaliphilous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing an organism that grows best in environments with a high pH, such as alkaline soil or water
2. Living or flourishing in strongly basic surroundings, where many other life forms could not survive
3. Characterizing microbes or plants that prefer alkaline habitats and cannot easily tolerate acidic conditions

Etymology: Alkaliphilous describes organisms that thrive in highly alkaline conditions, and its parts are plain: "alkali" plus Greek "philos", meaning "loving" or "fond of". The "alkali" element comes from Arabic "al-qaly", "the ashes of the saltwort plant", since alkali was originally made by burning such plants and leaching the ash. "Philos" appears in countless scientific coinages, such as "bibliophile" and "hydrophilic". The word is a modern technical coinage from the 20th century, built from these classical and Arabic-derived parts, and it belongs to microbiology, where it was applied to bacteria and other microbes that grow best at high pH. It was not used by the ancient Greeks, who had no concept of alkaline chemistry in this sense. Its formation follows the same pattern as "acidophilous", the term for organisms that prefer acidic environments, which is formed from the parallel element "acid" and the same suffix.

Synonyms: alkaliphilic

Antonyms: acidophilic, acidophilous