Biobased

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Concerned with materials sourced from biological origins used in products rather than petroleum-based resources
2. Associated with goods that are made from renewable biological inputs, emphasizing sustainability over fossil fuels
3. Relating to products derived from renewable biological sources instead of conventional petroleum-based materials

Etymology: "Biobased" is a plain modern compound: "bio-" (from Greek "bios", life) joined to "based," meaning made or derived from biological materials such as plants, crops or other living matter rather than from petroleum. The combining form "bio-" has been used in English words since the late 1800s, and the "based" element is the ordinary English past participle sense of building something on a foundation or source. Put together, the word describes a product whose raw material comes from living organisms. The term is most common in industry and policy writing, where it distinguishes plant-derived plastics, fuels and chemicals from their fossil-fuel equivalents. Its sense is therefore literal rather than figurative: the "based" points to where the material is sourced, and "bio-" names the kind of source.

Synonyms: bio-based