Cytophotometrically

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. A method involving light measurement to analyze the concentration of cell components within a given sample is often employed in scientific research
2. This process utilizes photometric techniques to quantify the various cellular elements present in a biological specimen
3. Using photometric techniques to assess cellular materials in a sample

Etymology: "Cytophotometrically" is a chain of formations built from Greek roots, and its history is simply a matter of stacking parts. The core is "cytophotometric," which joins "cyto-," from Greek "kytos" meaning "hollow vessel" and used in biology for "cell," with "photo-," from Greek "phos" meaning "light," and "-metric," from Greek "metron" meaning "measure." Read literally, the whole thing describes measuring light through cells, which is exactly what the technique does when it passes light through a stained specimen and records how much is absorbed. The adverb adds "-ally" to that adjective, the standard English suffix that turns an adjective ending in "-ic" into an adverb describing the manner of an action. So a scientist who examines a sample cytophotometrically is measuring its cellular contents by these optical means. Each piece is a familiar Greek element; the word as a whole is a modern technical coinage from the laboratory, not an ancient term.