Mesophiles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Microorganisms that thrive in moderate temperature ranges, typically between about 20 and 45 degrees Celsius, rather than in extreme heat or cold
2. Living things, especially bacteria and other microbes, whose optimal growth occurs at medium temperatures instead of very hot or very cold conditions
3. Microbes that flourish in temperate surroundings and are commonly found in soil, food, and the human body where conditions are neither extreme nor freezing

Etymology: "Mesophiles" is the plural of "mesophile," a noun for organisms that thrive at moderate temperatures, neither very cold nor very hot. The word is built from two Greek-derived elements: "meso-," from Greek "mesos," meaning "middle," and "-phile," from Greek "philos," meaning "loving" or "fond of." Put together, the literal sense is "middle-loving," which describes exactly what these organisms do: they favour the middle of the thermal range. The same pattern appears in other scientific coinages. Words ending in "-phile" name things that are drawn to a particular condition, so a "thermophile" loves heat and a "psychrophile" loves cold. The "-phile" element is the key, and "meso-" supplies the middle ground. Because both parts come from classical Greek but were combined in modern scientific usage, the word is a technical coinage rather than an ancient term, and it was built to classify microbes by their temperature preferences.

Antonyms: thermophiles, psychrophiles